Rand Paul

Update II: From our perspective, the news just gets better and better. The latest news, now that President Trump is on his way to Saudi Arabia to conduct the work of president, is that Comey the Clown has agreed to testify after Memorial Day to an open hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee.

So why are we smiling? For one thing, we will enjoy the moment when Comey the Clown is asked about his relationship to Robert Mueller. Gregg Jarrett has done some great work on this question:

Gregg Jarrett: Why Robert Mueller should resign as special counsel

Robert Mueller has a serious conflict of interest that should disqualify him from serving as special counsel.

He has had a long and close relationship with someone who will surely become a pivotal witness –James Comey. [snip]

How can Americans have confidence in the results if they know the special counsel may harbor a conspicuous bias? They cannot. The conflict inevitably discredits whatever conclusion is reached. It renders the entire investigatory exercise suspect, and it only elevates the controversy surrounding it. [snip]

The law governing the special counsel (28 CFR 600.7) specifically prohibits him from serving if he has a conflict of interest in the case. The rule has been interpreted to mean that even the appearance of a conflict is sufficient for disqualification.

A conflict of interest is a situation in which an individual has competing interests or loyalties. The conflict itself creates a clash between that individual’s self-interest or bias and his professional or public interest. It calls into question whether he can discharge his responsibilities in a fair, objective and impartial manner.

Identical rules govern prosecutors who, for example, must recuse themselves from handling a case against a person with whom they have worked or had a personal relationship. The same would be true if a prosecutor had a close relationship with a witness in the case. The prior association raises the real or perceived possibility of prejudice or favoritism which is contrary to the fair administration of justice.

So what exactly is Mueller’s conflict? He and James Comey are good friends and former colleagues who worked hand-in-hand for years at the FBI. Agents will tell you they were joined at the hip. They stood together in solidarity, both threatening to resign over the warrantless wiretapping fiasco involving then-Attorney General John Ashcroft in 2004.

Comey regards his predecessor as a mentor, while Mueller considers Comey his protégé. When Comey was appointed to succeed Mueller as FBI Director, both men appeared together and were effusive in their praise of one another. Their relationship is not merely a casual one. It is precisely the kind of association which ethical rules are designed to guard against.

We’re gonna need a special prosecutor to investigate the special prosecutor. And we need a whole lotta special prosecutors. Hooray!

Gregg Jarrett’s article should be read in its entirety to see the many questions Comey will be asked after Memorial Day. We want answers, lots and lots of answers. Leftist Trump hater Matt Taibbi at Rolling Stone has lots of good questions we want answered too:

How Did Russiagate Start?
Amid the chaos of James Comey’s firing, new questions about the timeline of his fateful investigation [snip]

If Comey felt the existence of his investigation was so important that he he had to disclose it to DNI Coats on Coats’ first day in office, why didn’t he feel the same need to disclose the existence of an investigation to Clapper at any time between July and January?

Furthermore, how could the FBI participate in a joint assessment about Russian efforts to meddle in American elections and not tell Clapper and the other intelligence chiefs about what would seemingly be a highly germane counterintelligence investigation in that direction?

Again, prior to last week, Clapper had said he would know if there was a FISA warrant issued on this matter. But then on April 11th, law enforcement and government officials leaked – anonymously, as has been the case throughout most of this story – that the FBI had obtained a FISA warrant for surveillance of Trump associate Carter Page.

So what’s going on here? [snip]

What exactly is the FBI investigating? Why was it kept secret from other intelligence chiefs, if that’s what happened? That matters, if we’re trying to gauge what happened last week. [snip]

Why can’t we be told what’s going on? Operational secrecy would be a believable excuse, were it not for the fact that so much else has been leaked. [snip]

A lot of our civil liberties protections and rules of press ethics are designed to prevent exactly this situation, in which a person lingers for extended periods of time under public suspicion without being aware of the exact nature, or origin, of the accusations.

It’s why liberal thinkers have traditionally abhorred secret courts, secret surveillance and secret evidence, and in the past would have reflexively discouraged the news media from printing the unverified or unverifiable charges emanating from such secret sources. But because it’s Donald Trump, no one seems to care.

We should care. The uncertainty has led to widespread public terror, mass media hysteria and excess, and possibly even panic in the White House itself, where, who knows, Trump may even have risked military confrontation with Russia in an effort to shake the collusion accusations. All of this is exacerbated by the constant stream of leaks and hints at mother lodes of evidence that are just around the corner. It’s quite literally driving the country crazy.

The public deserves to know what’s going on. It deserved to know before the election, it deserved to know before the inauguration, and it deserves to know now.

Americans need answers. The political establishment swamp is attempting to destroy President Trump and all Americans need to see what the “deep state” and political establishment is capable of when their power is threatened. The more the political establishment swamp tries to destroy President Trump however, the closer they are to their own destruction.

We have one answer today we did not have earlier in the week. We now know who the leaker of the Comey Memos is. It was Comey’s good friend Benjamin Wittes. Wittes in a long blog article provides a breadcrumb trail into the questions that must be asked of Comey the Clown. In his article, Wittes describes how Comey has personal animus against President Trump. Wittes describes how Comey the Clown tried to use blue curtains to camouflage himself so that President Trump would not notice him. Wittes describes how Comey the Clown despised President Trump. Wittes also describes how Comey loved Barack Obama, the man that actually stopped Comey from doing what he thought was a good idea.

In other words, Comey the Clown, the Director of the F.B.I., despised President Trump even as Clown Comey created F.B.I. investigations that few can explain and which have no reason for being. And now, a bestie friend of Comey the Clown leads an investigation which will focus on Comey the Clown’s circus act. Comey the Clown must be forced to produce all the memos, of which there are many, which Comey wrote. These must include memos written after meetings with corrupt former Attorney General Loretta Lynch and every meeting with corrupt Barack Obama.

We must first light up the swamp then fight the swamp before we can drain the swamp. The swamp thinks it is destroying President Trump. All the swamp has done is emit its methane stink and light itself up for all to see. That’s why we continue to smile.

Special Prosecutor #14 – Clinton Foundation pay to play, pay for influence, Uranium One collusion, what did Hillary know, when did she know it? Seize all correspondence relating to possible collusion and coordination between State Dept and CFoundation, Bill, Hillary, and their staff and associates. Ditto for profiteering in Haiti. Were Hillary’s State Dept disclosures accurate, timely and complete? Do they shake hands with the correspondence, account balances fund transfers and Clinton Foundation 501(c)(3) filings? Did CFoundaiton behaviour disqualify for tax exemption? Are retroactive fines and asset forfeitures in order? Or worse?

Special Prosecutor #15 – Weaponizing of the IRS. Get to the bottom of Lois Lerner and White House coordination, the stonewalling asswipe John Koskinen and all their cronies. Someone needs to pay for the hell they visited upon a private citizen running a small family business turned activist, persecuted by a corrupt government for trying to do the right thing, whose riveting testimony should have put Lois Lerner and Eric Holder behind bars.

Special Prosecutor #17 – Turn over every rock on Eric Holder and Fast and Furious and its subsequent cover-up. Give the gun runners immunity and take down that smug sociopath Eric Holder.

Special Prosecutor #18 (two for one)– Criminal weaponizing of the EPA and Dept of Interior. Ken Salazar’s falsification of expert testimony to shut down the offshore drilling industry. Collusion and falsification of rulemaking to put the coal industry out of business. [snip]

At least for starters. Much more where that came from. Drain the damn swamp!!

Let’s have many many special prosecutors! Fight fire with fire! Drain the swamp!

The leftist totalitarians want veto power over the voters and they use the deep state to try to overthrow a president the voters elected. Fortunately President Trump is a fighter and Trump voters are fighters too.

—————————————————–

We are happy. We like the latest news. Yes, like many after the latest of the ceaseless Big Media/Establishment attacks against President Trump, we mostly turn off the TV news and almost never even bother watching Fox News (maybe that’s why they have fallen to third place in the ratings after years of being #1). But overall, we like what is happening. As we wrote previously in praise of the clarity of war:

Real wars, like a good thunderstorm, clear the air. We need a real war. We need several real wars. Let’s go to war.

Let Trump Be Trump! We thought President Trump should have begun to wage all out war from the first day of his presidency. But President Trump wanted to try other options. President Trump wanted to play nice. President Trump wanted to work with the establishment. It was a nice try, but its time to end the nice guy act because nice guys finish last.

On March 5 of this year we called for a “truth commission”. America really needs a “truth commission”. Lot’s and lots of “truth commissions”. We also need special prosecutors. Lots and lots of special prosecutors.

In our March 5 call for a “truth commission” we made some mistakes. Some of the truth commissions we asked for should really be special prosecutors. Back in March we noted the three Muslim brothers who allegedly stole intelligence information from their workplace – which happened to be the U.S. Capitol. We need a special prosecutor to prosecute the three Muslim brothers as well as potential crimes of Nancy Pelosi, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, Joaquin Castro, Tammy Duckworth and other Obama Dimocrats who at the very least are guilty of negligence. Special prosecutors #1 and #2.

In that same article we called for a special prosecutor to investigate Barack Obama. Make that special prosecutorS to investigate Barack Obama. Did Barack Obama “wiretap” Donald J. Trump, Marco Rubio, Rand Paul? That’s special prosecutor #3.

What about the story of Barack Obama and the bribes from Syrian crook Antoin “Tony” Rezko? Did the Syrians use Rezko to blackmail Obama into his disastrous Syrian “policy”? Special prosecutor #4.

President Donald J. Trump tried to move forward with his agenda and let Obama wallow in his misery. That was a strategic and tactical mistake. Barack Obama is a cancer on the presidency and on America. President Donald J. Trump must remove the cancer in its entirety.

The Russia nonsense? All the noise about Russia has been a way for Barack Obama to undermine President Trump.

We detailed all these potential crimes back in March. As we wrote back then, President Trump was and is entirely too kind and unforgiving. No more Mr. Nice Guy. Special prosecutors please, President Trump!

The Democratic National Committee staffer who was gunned down on July 10 on a Washington, D.C., street just steps from his home had leaked thousands of internal emails to WikiLeaks, investigative sources told Fox News.

A federal investigator who reviewed an FBI forensic report — generated within 96 hours after DNC staffer Seth Rich’s murder — detailing the contents Rich’s computer said he made contact with WikiLeaks through Gavin MacFadyen, a now-deceased American investigative reporter, documentary filmmaker, and director of WikiLeaks who was living in London at the time.

“I have seen and read the emails between Seth Rich and WikiLeaks,” the federal investigator told Fox News, confirming the MacFadyen connection. He said the emails are in possession of the FBI, while the stalled case is in the hands of the Washington Police Department. [snip]

The federal investigator, who requested anonymity, said 44,053 emails and 17,761 attachments between Democratic National Committee leaders, spanning from January 2015 through late May 2016, were transferred from Rich to MacFadyen before May 21.

On July 22, just 12 days after Rich was killed, WikiLeaks published internal DNC emails that appeared to show top party officials conspired to stop Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont from becoming the party’s presidential nominee. That controversy resulted in Debbie Wasserman Schultz resigning as DNC chairperson. A number of Sanders supporters refused to back party nominee Hillary Clinton, and some subsequently formed groups to work against Clinton and the party.

WikiLeaks leader Julian Assange has stopped short of identifying Rich as the source of the emails, but has taken a keen interest in the case, and has not denied working with Rich.

“WikiLeaks has decided to issue a US$20k reward for information leading to conviction for the murder of DNC staffer Seth Rich,” the organization announced. [snip]

“My investigation shows someone within the D.C. government, Democratic National Committee or Clinton team is blocking the murder investigation from going forward,” Wheeler told Fox News.

A DNC staffer who it is alleged transferred thousands of emails to Wikileaks was killed in a mostly crime free affluent Bloomingdale neighborhood for a “robbery” yet neither his wallet, cell phone, keys, watch, nor $2000 necklace was taken from him. No run of the mill criminal is that incompetent. Special prosecutor #9.

The Seth Rich murder reminds us that the DNC refused to allow the F.B.I. to see the computer servers allegedly hacked by Wikileaks. Special prosecutor #10.

Back to Seth Rich, after he was shot D.C. police arrived at the crime scene in three minutes. Seth Rich was conscious. The police had automatic recorders on them yet none of those recordings have been released nor what Seth Rich told them released to the public. Footage from a security camera on a market on the corner has not been released either. D.C. police cannot be trusted. Special prosecutor #11.

Obama Dimocrats call for special prosecutors when there is no evidence or suggestion of a crime other than in their fevered imaginations. There is certainly plenty in the Seth Rich murder to warrant a special prosecutor especially under the low standards of Obama Dimocrats.

Judge Andrew Napolitano, Fox News senior judicial analyst, went on FOX Business Network on Monday to discuss allegations Senator Rand Paul and another senator were under surveillance by the Obama administration.

Napolitano also dropped a bomb on the Obama administration spying on the US Supreme Court.

Judge Napolitano: Justice Scalia told me that he often thought the court was being surveilled. And he told me that probably four or five years ago…If they had to unmask Senator Paul’s name to reveal a conversation he was having with a foreign agent and the foreign agent was hostile to the United States they can do that. That’s not what he’s talking about. They’re talking about unmasking him when he’s having a conversation with his campaign manager when he’s running in the Republican primary.

During the discussion Judge Napolitano also said Barack Obama could be subpoenaed to testify if he viewed the unmasked intelligence.

Special prosecutor #13: not Seth Rich, but the ghost of Marc Rich, is all about Comey:

It was Comey that closed down the Marc Rich investigation in June 21, 2002 (the Twitter date is incorrect and we post the correct date). It was Comey that shut down the Hillary Clinton investigation in 2016. Comey was also the deputy counsel to the Senate Whitewater Committee. And it is Comey that requires a special prosecutor to untangle his connections:

Former Bush AG On Comey’s 2007 Brush With Scandal: ‘Jim’s Loyalty Was More To Chuck Schumer’

This isn’t the first time James Comey placed himself at the center of a partisan attempt to oust a top Republican. He did the same thing in 2007. [snip]

In fact, the current episode is not the first time Comey and his associates plotted to oust a sitting Republican official through highly orchestrated political theater and carefully crafted narratives in which Comey is the courageous hero bravely fighting to preserve the rule of law. To understand how Comey came to be FBI director in the first place, and how he operates in the political arena, it is important to review the last scandal in which Comey had a front-row seat: the 2007 U.S. attorney firings and the fight over the 2004 reauthorization of Stellar Wind, a mass National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance program designed to mitigate terrorist threats in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

It’s a long story that merits a full reading – by a special prosecutor!

As to the latest Comey narrative dictated to and published by the New York Times this is what we recently wrote, before the latest “it’s over for Trump” hysteria:

Throughout the presidential campaign in 2015/2016 then candidate Donald J. Trump spoke to huge rallies of supporters who shouted “Lock Her Up!!!” Once candidate Donald J. Trump won the election because of his victories in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, President-Elect Donald J. Trump’s heart softened, along with, some would argue, his head. No longer did President-Elect Donald J. Trump want to “Lock Her Up!!!” President-Elect Donald J. Trump sweetly declared that he did not want to see his vanquished opponent dragged off to prison in an orange outfit which few can pull off fashion-wise.

So is it possible that President Trump sweetly questioned whether Mike Flynn had suffered enough and that he did not want to “Lock Him Up”? Yeah, it’s possible and not a crime nor obstruction of anything but Chuck Schumer’s bowels.

Big Media is in “peak meltdown” against President Trump. The Obama Dimocrats are in full hate against President Trump. The Republican establishment continues to passive-aggressively attack President Trump and even openly oppose President Trump:

Earlier Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he’s prepared to block Trump on many of his proposed budget cuts and won’t support major tax cuts that add to the deficit. Nor would he commit to building Trump’s border wall.

That McConnell stab in the back sent the stock markets reeling downwards. Senator Jeff Flake and other GOP creeps offered snarky attacks. Speaker Paul Ryan (something is wrong with that boy) remained the passive-aggressive poster boy against President Trump. Up and down, the GOP establishment guns are aimed at the political outsider that is now President.

Typically, Newt Gingrich slaps down McConnell and Paul Ryan (something is wrong with that boy). Newt reminds them all that 2018 is coming:

Newt Gingrich tells GOP Congress to fight for Trump, or else Democrats will take power

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a close ally of President Trump, said it’s time for Republicans in Congress to either “surrender or fight” for the president. But surrender, he said, would bring House Democrats and their leader, Nancy Pelosi, to power.

“Republicans in general — not just Trump — are in a crossroads,” Gingrich said in an interview. “And if they don’t get their act together, Pelosi is going to become speaker and she’s going to impeach Trump. That’s how big the stakes are.”

Gingrich presumes that the GOP wants to be in the majority. There is an argument to be made that Paul Ryan (something is wrong with that boy) and McConnell are more comfortable with Obama Dimocrat control than outsider President Trump.

While nervous nellies and pearl clutchers clutch pearls nervously, we smile at all this.

We smile because although President Trump was correct to try to work with the establishment, we suspected that would never work well for him. That time of niceness is over. Others suspect that it is time for Trump to be Trump and rally his friends to him:

When you talk to Trump loyalists, they tell you that the president is surrounded by a slew of opportunist, conniving, disloyal staffers who are serving themselves and not the man who won on Election Day.

One Trump transition official griped to me Tuesday, “He left all the people who like him out of the White House.” [snip]

My understanding, though, is that much of the staff is skeptical towards if not outright hostile to the president. And the consequences of the shared dislike have been devastating, among them a slew of leaks that has kept the administration on the defensive and unable to pursue the agenda of the president. Trump is hardly able to have a conversation or meeting at the White House that doesn’t somehow get retold to the press within days. The more embarrassing the scoop, the better. [snip]

The president has also been ill-served by holdovers from the previous president, whose allegiances do not align with the president’s own. [snip]

To be sure, there are plenty of people who both love and respect Trump. But for some odd reason they are outnumbered in this White House.

As the transition official recommended, “[Trump] needs to put in the people he can trust, the ones who were there with him from the beginning.”

“He brought in the swamp,” the official added.

What will President Trump do? President Trump will do what he always does. Fight:

President Donald Trump turned a Coast Guard commencement into a media-bashing exercise on Wednesday as he returned fire on news outlets accusing him of sharing classified information and interfering in an FBI investigation.

‘No politician in history, and I say this with great surety, has been treated worse or more unfairly,’ Trump protested. ‘You can’t let them get you down. You can’t let the critics and the naysayers get in the way of your dreams,’ the president said.

He added: ‘I guess that’s why I won.’ [snip]

‘The people understand what I’m doing, and that’s the most important thing,’ he contended. ‘I didn’t get elected to serve the Washington media or special interests. I got elected to serve the forgotten men and women of our country, and that’s what I’m doing.’

‘I will never stop fighting for you, and I will never stop fighting for the American people. ‘
Trump was presented with a ceremonial saber during the commencement exercises.

As he returned to his seat, Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly was heard on an open mic telling him: ‘Use that on the media, sir.’

Jared Kushner should be worried. Steve Bannon should be worried. Reince Priebus should be worried. They should all be worried and that’s because of President Trump’s brilliant management style.

Every management style has plusses and minuses. We happen to prefer President Trump’s management style. The other management style used by people such as Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama simply does not work in our modern society with all its divisions.

Trump’s management style? President Trump is the center of the wheel. This makes President Trump a centripetal force when it comes to information. PDT sucks up information from all his aides, TV, publications, critics, everything and everyone.

The management style we don’t think works for a modern president is the pyramid management style. That is the management style of people like Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. This pyramid style is very structured and everyone has a place in the pyramid. The president at the top of the pyramid has all his/her incoming information filtered through those immediately below him on the pyramid.

Big Media and the establishment of the country prefer the pyramid management style. Everyone has a place and all information is filtered through the pyramid. There are few if any surprises in the pyramid. The pyramid management style is excellent if your goal is structure and order. It’s not so good at getting things done other than the conventional. Lately conventional does not work.

President Trump’s management style is a vortex. It appears to be chaotic to everyone but the president at the center. Everyone competes to get the attention of the vortex center and the old rules of hierarchy and order are caught in the whirlwind.

Big Media hates the vortex. Big Media has long believed they are the masters of information. Big Media has been usurped by the center of the wheel for information gathering and information dissemination. Consider the latest “analysis” by Vanity Fair in their much discussed (by Big Media and Trump haters) article on the Trump White House:

THE INSIDE STORY OF THE KUSHNER-BANNON CIVIL WAR

West Wing sources come clean about the backstabbing, the bullying, the distrust, and the buzzing flies. [snip]

Priebus’s role is, by Trump’s design, less powerful than that of a traditional chief of staff. Typically, the chief of staff is meant to serve as the main gatekeeper to the president—having one person atop the hierarchy with unquestioned authority is essential—but Trump’s management style has long been to pit top aides against one another, and almost any senior aide can just wander into the Oval Office.

Oh, the horror!!! Vanity Fair cannot comprehend a free flow of information to the president. Vanity Fair craves the pyramid structure which has so spectacularly failed American voters/citizens with such regularity.

As a public service we will digest and excrete the entire Vanity Fair article which has titillated Big Media narratives for our readers. Vanity Fair‘s entire article on the Trump White House is one cheap and easy conceit. Vanity Fair declares that the Trump White House is like a “reality show”. The entire article populates the imagined “reality show” with characters from the Trump orbit. Isn’t that a “wow” so very very original? Uninspired bitchiness from hacks is the fare of Vanity Fair these days.

As with everything from Big Media these days, insipid chit-chat is what passes for “analysis” from Vanity Fair. Big Media takes everything Trump and puts a negative spin on it. It’s easy to do. Anyone can do it. If you have a loving relationship with a person, just label it “co-dependent” or “exploitative”. If a wonderful new technology is developed, describe all the horrors that could potentially come from the technology. You fall in love, “oh girlfriend you’re gonna regret it”. Anything and everything is turned into negative energy chit chat. Whatever it is, it is not “analysis”.

Good analysis of the Trump White House should examine the benefits and drawbacks of the Trump management style. The big drawback of the Trumpcentric universe is that if anything happens to Trump there will be a black hole of gravity at the center which will threaten to consume everything. Also, for the not very astute outside the vortex, the vortex appears as chaos. But as has been demonstrated since June 15, 2015 the vortex wins in the end and creates its own order and results. As long as President Trump remains healthy and active, we believe the benefits of the Trump vortex are greater than its deficits.

Of course the Trump vortex is not very good for those who work for Trump. The voter and President Trump benefit from the vortex but not the aides.

Consider Jared Kushner, the son-in-law. Big Media has declared that Jared Kushner is now king of the hill. To the extent that Kushner is family he is well positioned. Kushner, to quote from the chit-chat Vanity Fairairhead gossips is ascendant:

Ivanka Trump, who could play the No-BS Heiress in our reality show, and her husband, Jared, the Crafty In-Law, are both children of privilege and are both extraordinarily loyal to their fathers. The senior administration official told me that, with this president, it is “family above all else. That’s how he has lived his life. Anybody thinking they are going to win a fight against the family is not very smart.” Kushner has reportedly described himself as a “first among equals” among White House staffers—not an endearing self-assessment, but probably an accurate one—and has been given an almost laughable assortment of responsibilities. He is tasked not only with bringing peace to the Middle East but also with re-inventing the way the entire government does business. He is heavily involved in policy regarding China. He recently made a surprise trip to Iraq. In addition, he is now the boss of his father’s former tormentor, Chris Christie, who heads a White House commission to tackle the opioid crisis. Christie was the prosecutor who helped put Jared’s father, Charles Kushner, in prison, and Jared has not forgotten.

If Vanity Air tried to do “analysis” not gossip the mag rag could have pondered the situation Jared Kushner finds himself in. From the world of real estate in New York/New Jersey Jared Kushner has a background not entirely dissimilar from President Trump. But where President Trump is the center of the vortex, consuming information, and due to his life in public and the tabloids, able to command from the executive suite – Jared Kushner has very specific assignments to carry out on behalf of President Trump.

President Trump can make general decisions and issue orders. But no one expects President Trump to be an operative who picks up the hammer and saw to get the job done. That is precisely the situation Jared Kushner is in right now.

Jared Kushner has some very specific assignments. Will he succeed or fail? Middle East peace, China, opiods? That’s a very diverse portfolio. If Jared Kushner succeeds in these tasks who would be so churlish as to be unhappy he has done his job well? If Jared Kushner fails, then he will be called Icarus.

Anyone recall candidate Ben Carson? To be discreet and our typical sweet selves we won’t quote what Candidate Trump said about Candidate Carson. But it had something to do with Carson trying to kill his mother. Candidate Lyin’ Ted? Again, discretion is the better part of our nature, and we don’t mention Candidate Trump saying something about the assassination of JFK and Heidi and Daddy Cruz. Now Cruz helps PDT. Remember the wack-a-doodle two headed dentist, Candidate Rand Paul and the mockery unleashed by Candidate Trump against the diminutive senator? Senator Rand Paul is now a big Trump fan. What happened? It was the Trump Doctrine at play:

The Trump Doctrine

Do what President Trump wants you to do, and he loves you. Stand in President Trump’s way and a MOAB lands on your head.

Remember when Candidate Trump denounced NATO as obsolete? Now NATO is dancing to President Trump’s tune – taking on once-upon-a-time friend Putin and paying up on their dues. Result? President Trump no longer slaps NATO as obsolete. Trump “Art of the Deal-ed” them. President Trump got what Americans wanted – so as long as they do what this American president wants, NATO’s wheel spoke is up.

Remember the Import-Export Bank that Candidate Trump denounced – promised he would destroy? NeverTrump hysterics flow from President Trump’s latest moves on the Import-Export Bank. What did President Trump do? President Trump violated his campaign pledge to eliminate the bank. Or did he? President Trump just appointed Scott Garrett to the Import-Export Bank Board. Who is Scott Garrett? He hates the Import-Export Bank and nothing can be done without his “yes” vote.

China’s spoke on the wheel is up right now because China is doing what President Trump wants for the American people. Remember what President Trump said about China on the campaign trail? For diplomacy’s sake we won’t quote Candidate Trump. As long as China does what President Trump wants, China will be wined, dined, and praised. Until the moment when the wheel turns China is on top. The wheel will turn when President Trump makes more “Art of the Deal-y” demands.

Deng Xiaoping Theory (simplified Chinese: 邓小平理论; traditional Chinese: 鄧小平理論; pinyin: Dèng Xiǎopíng Lǐlùn), also known as Dengism, is the series of political and economic ideologies first developed by Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping. The theory does not claim to reject Marxism–Leninism or Mao Zedong Thought but instead seeks to adapt them to the existing socio-economic conditions of China.

Deng also stressed opening China to the outside world,[1] the implementation of one country, two systems, and through the phrase “seek truth from facts“, an advocation of political and economic pragmatism.[2] [snip]

One of the most famous maxims of Deng, dating back to the years before the Cultural Revolution, states that “It doesn’t matter whether a cat is white or black, as long as it catches mice.” In other words, he did not worry too much about whether a person is a revolutionary or not, as long as he or she is efficient and capable to do the job under the socialist economy.[3] (This statement came to stand in opposition to the ideas of class struggle projected into economic relations, the latter being epitomized in a phrase “a socialist train coming with a delay is better than the capitalist one that comes on time“).

China largely owes its economic growth to the pragmatism of Deng Xiaoping’s theory.[citation needed] The task faced by Deng was twofold: to promote modernization while preserving the ideological unity of the CPC and its control of the difficult process of reforms.

If President Trump quoted commie Deng Xiaoping our Big Media would fawn all over sweetie pie commie Trump. President Trump is not commie Deng but there is no doubt that President Trump aides should remember “It doesn’t matter whether a cat is white or black, as long as it catches mice.”

During the presidential campaign Candidate Donald J. Trump stunned many when he either redefined “conservatism” to be what he thought. Remember “I am for free trade but I also want fair trade” that so shocked the conservative priesthood? Candidate Trump especially shocked, when denounced because he was not a “conservative, and responded with “who cares?”

That’s what so many who lament the rise of Kushner and the slump of Steve Bannon don’t get. After the failure of ObamaCare repeal because of the Freedom Caucus, President Trump did his usual “Art of the Deal-ing” moves. Trump immediately declared he was through with ObamaCare repeal, denounced the Freedom Caucus, and announced he would triangulate with Democrats to pass legislation. This shocked the pearl clutchers.

To slap awake the Freedom Caucus and wake them to the dangers of not passing ObamaCare repeal soon, President Trump played his trump card – Steve Bannon. If the Freedom Caucus did not cooperate even with a powerful Steve Bannon cajoling them, then either Steve Bannon is useless in dealings with the Freedom Caucus, or the Freedom Caucus is too contrarian to ever get anything done.

President Trump’s argument is “if this cat can’t catch mice, get rid of him. I’ll get rid of the rats another way.” The threat from President Trump is credible, not because of how he MOABed ISIS or Tomahawked Syria (although that does demonstrate the “#DFWM” doctrine) but because of campaign history. Corey Lewandowski was viewed as indispensable, until Paul Manafort became indispensable, until Steve Bannon/KellyAnne Conway became indispensable. Now Jared Kushner is indispensable.

All President Trump was doing was “Art of the Deal-ing”. President Trump knows Obama Dimocrats won’t help him or the American people to see Candidate Trump’s promises fulfilled. But the threat did some awfully good artful dealing. For all the complaints, the fact is that the Freedom Caucus came forth with a bit more pragmatism and now ObamaCare repeal is once again on the table and soon to be voted on.

Which brings us to Deng Xiaoping again. Something conservative NeverTrumpers should keep in mind. Let’s invert a Dengism to see what President Trump would like to do: “a capitalist train coming with a delay is better than the socialist one that comes on time“. That’s contrary to the postulate of the efficient cat. But it is a warning that the TrumpTrain will roll in the direction of Candidate Trump’s campaign as long as it rolls but if you try to stop it for reasons of ideological purity, then watch out, because the cat in the dark will come back. In other words what matters to President Trump is to get the job done, hopefully in the right way, but whichever way, the job will get done. The job, is Make America Great Again.

Some don’t understand that for President Trump the job is to Make America Great Again, not make ideology or particular leaders, or something or other great again. The threats of scandal thuggery coming from people like Mike Cernovich who are infatuated with themselves, are going nowhere. President Trump does not faint. The well intended warnings about false friends from Kurt Schlichter are best directed at those that think they can use President Trump as their toy.

Schlichter makes some good points about how close President Trump is to total victory and winning, winning, winning. But President Trump is the one who performed the miracle of election and he deserves better than faint praise.

President Trump knows what he is doing. He is at the center of the vortex. We recall when Vladimir Putin was going to be his best friend. Then Putin thought he was king of the hill. So Trump had to MOAB drop the Trump doctrine on Putin’s head.

The same forces aligned against Candidate Trump are still spreading the “chaos” “sell-out” “not a real conservative” narratives to undermine President Trump. But President Trump continues to strike like a TrumpNado for his goal of Make America Great Again.

President Trump is at the center of the vortex and in calm control. Where Big Media and NeverTrumpers see “chaos” President Trump sees the vortex of information flows. President Trump understands the vortex he is in. President Trump at the center of the vortex knows how to use what orbits around him to move in the direction he selects.

America’s enemies, foreign and domestic still don’t see the vortex, the TrumpNado as an intelligent force, moving deliberately to strike.

Update II: Lots of good analysis produced on the Susan Rice story. There’s this one at NeverTrump site NRO by the smart Andrew McCarthy who understands Trump was Watergated. McCarthy states that Rice unmasked names not because she did not know who the masked names were, nor to “investigate” because the White House does not investigate – F.B.I. C.I.A. N.S.A. investigate, but rather to unmask specific names to leakers down the line who would not know the identities of the masked names.

Likewise, NeverTrump lunatic headquarters Red State exposes CNN refusal to take the Susan Rice/Barack Obama Watergating of Trump seriously because their lead reporter (Jim Sciutto) is an old crony employee of both Obama during the Susan Rice era and her corrupt Big Media husband who is president of ABC News.

The Russia Big Media distraction is produced, directed, and acted by Barack Obama thugs. That’s why Barack Obama ran away to hide in French Polynesia for a month in mid-March. Obama doesn’t want to answer questions now that he is caught like a rat. He knew it was coming once Trump tweeted on March 4. It’s not just to get away from the ogre Michelle.

The lesson: don’t mess with President Trump. PDT got it right. Don’t play chess with the master. Don’t.

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Update: Big Media will not fry Rice. Big Media thus far has ignored the Susan Rice abuse of power story because it directly implicates Big Media. Don’t forget Susan Rice is married to Ian Cameron, the executive producer of ABC News. Rice’s deputy was Ben Rhodes. Ben Rhodes is the brother of CBS News President David Rhodes.

Big Media is the enemy!

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Chess players understand what President Trump is up to – he’s castling. The dullest amateur military historian can see what the Obama Dims are up to too.

This first week of April finds President Trump making large moves on the chess board. There’s a big meeting with massive ramifications, which we have been writing about for a long time, regarding Egypt. There is the massive move to confirm Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. On North Korea and war, we also see a massive move in a meeting this week with the President of China. There’s the Susan Rice revelation today too. It’s all big moves.

On the Obama Dimocrat side, military historians will recognize the strategy. It’s a civil war reenactment of Pickett’s Charge.

Because it is so simply stupid as strategy, let’s start with Obama Dimocrats. Their strategy against President Trump is exactly like the ill-fated, obviously stupid, Pickett’s Charge:

Pickett’s Charge was the culmination of the Battle of Gettysburg. Taking place on July 3, 1863, the third and final day of battle, it involved an infantry assault of approximately 15,000 Confederate soldiers against Union Major General George Meade’s troops’ position along Cemetery Ridge, manned by some 6,500 Federals. The assault would take the nine brigades of Confederate soldiers over three-quarter mile of open ground susceptible to cannon fire the entire time. The ill-fated assault resulted in over 6,000 Confederate casualties and marked the end of the battle of Gettysburg as well as Lee’s last invasion of the north.

That exactly describes what Obama Dimocrats are up to on the Gorsuch Supreme Court fight. They are going to CHARGE!!!! against President Trump in “open ground susceptible to cannon fire the entire time” for no discernible victory scenario. Already the Senate Judiciary Committee has approved the Gorsuch nomination 11-9 on a purely partisan vote. The fight now moves to the full Senate.

The result as we have repeatedly written is that Obama Dimocrats will lose their Pickett’s filibuster against Gorsuch and every Supreme Court fight thereafter. This will lead to President Trump given a completely free strategic hand for his next Supreme Court picks.

Why are Obama Dimocrats charging across a vast open field, without political cover, constantly under fire, with no hope of victory, with only immediate and long term defeat possible? Because the left has gone mad, entirely hopelessly crazy. Anyone who read the first of the series of L.A. Times editorials this weekend sees the crazy.

The L.A. Times calls President Trump an “unprepared and unsuited” doofus who can’t get anything done while at the same time in full panic attack about all the “damage” President Trump has already done. Both of these allegations cannot be simultaneously correct. The L.A. Times is deranged as can be seen by it’s scenario about what can be done to politically assassinate President Trump:

Where will this end? Will Trump moderate his crazier campaign positions as time passes? Or will he provoke confrontation with Iran, North Korea or China, or disobey a judge’s order or order a soldier to violate the Constitution? Or, alternately, will the system itself — the Constitution, the courts, the permanent bureaucracy, the Congress, the Democrats, the marchers in the streets — protect us from him as he alienates more and more allies at home and abroad, steps on his own message and creates chaos at the expense of his ability to accomplish his goals?

That deranged paragraph is actually a good bit of counter analysis. It actually explains a great deal of what the left is up to. This leftist blueprint sees that President Trump will not let the problems of Iran and North Korea fester but will instead take action. The blueprint plan of the totalitarian left is also calling for “the courts” and “the permanent bureaucracy” along with Dimocrats in Congress and kooks in the streets to attack President Trump in any and every way possible.

Which brings us to President Donald J. Trump and what he is up to.

President Trump is playing political chess. As in the board game of kings, first come the opening moves. In the opening moves chess pieces are deployed tactically to achieve strategic aims. Some pawns are sacrificed for the greater good. Then when all the opening moves are exhausted, the King castles.

White House lawyers last month learned that the former national security adviser Susan Rice requested the identities of U.S. persons in raw intelligence reports on dozens of occasions that connect to the Donald Trump transition and campaign, according to U.S. officials familiar with the matter. [snip]

The National Security Council’s senior director for intelligence, Ezra Cohen-Watnick, was conducting the review, according to two U.S. officials who spoke with Bloomberg View on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly. In February Cohen-Watnick discovered Rice’s multiple requests to unmask U.S. persons in intelligence reports that related to Trump transition activities. He brought this to the attention of the White House General Counsel’s office, who reviewed more of Rice’s requests and instructed him to end his own research into the unmasking policy.

The intelligence reports were summaries of monitored conversations — primarily between foreign officials discussing the Trump transition, but also in some cases direct contact between members of the Trump team and monitored foreign officials. One U.S. official familiar with the reports said they contained valuable political information on the Trump transition such as whom the Trump team was meeting, the views of Trump associates on foreign policy matters and plans for the incoming administration.

This leak is a defensive and offensive chess move. It comes as the Supreme Court fight heats up and should tangentially aid the case being made for a Gorsuch elevation to the court by undermining the Obama Dimocrats. This report not only defensively vindicates President Trump’s assertion that he was being surveilled, it also exposes Susan Rice and the Obama thugs as the snoops and leakers who sought to politically damage President Trump, in an offense move.

This castling report mocks Susan Rice’s “I know nothing about this” assertions on PBS in March. Back then Susan Rice also asserted “I was surprised to see reports from Chairman Nunes on that account today.” Susan Rice might have been surprised that Chairman Nunes told the truth for all to hear. Susan Rice and all Americans now can see that Chairman Nunes handled himself very well. Contrary to what Big Media reports, Chairman Nunes “strange behavior” was not strange at all:

It emerged last week that he traveled to the White House last month, the night before he made an explosive allegation about Trump transition officials caught up in incidental surveillance. At the time he said he needed to go to the White House because the reports were only on a database for the executive branch. It now appears that he needed to view computer systems within the National Security Council that would include the logs of Rice’s requests to unmask U.S. persons.

So all that talk about disarray and wild charges from President Trump are now proven to be that the “wild” charges are accurate and the “disarray” a tactic to expose culprits.

It’s the same call when it comes to the “wild” “disarray” on healthcare. It’s President Trump playing normal, regular, political chess, albeit very smartly. President Trump knows exactly what he is doing when he attacks even those from his own political party:

GOP leaders, remember Trump ran against your pieties … and won [snip]

President Trump acts decisively, reflecting his entrepreneurially background, and expects similar alacrity from Congress. The American people entrusted the GOP with a level of power not seen in nearly a century and they expect results. This is especially true of the party’s most loyal supporters who are tired of excuses from their elected representatives. That sense of frustration, even betrayal, set the stage for the accession to power of Donald Trump.

Remember that Republican voters categorically rejected the party’s dream team during the primary in favor of an outsider who happily overturned many conservative pieties. Not to put too fine a point on it, but Donald Trump ran against the congressional leadership of his own party and won.

For those confused about President Trump unfairly attacking the Freedom Caucus for righteously opposing the dreadful ObamaCare repeal/replace bill be confused no longer. Trump is castling here too. President Trump has two trains running and he can jump back and forth at any time of his own choosing. President Trump is a smart chess player playing chess on both trains. That’s why President Trump will attack NeverTrumpers like Amash of the Freedom Caucus and threaten primary challenges while also sweet-talking and golfing with Senator Rand Paul who is an ally of the Freedom Caucus.

That’s all domestic policy chess moves. The stunning stuff in on foreign policy.

President Trump today met with President Al-Sisi of Egypt. Barack Obama trashed Al-Sisi and wanted him removed. President Trump plays chess with Al-Sisi.

Since January 1, 2015 it was obvious to us that President Al-Sisi is the solution to the problems of the middle east. It started with that excellent New Year’s Day speech. Al-Sisi understands that Muslims have to stop Muslim terrorism. By March of 2015, it was even clearer that Al-Sisi should be a strong American partner alongside Israel.

In March of 2015 we wrote about Al-Sisi yet again. It was election eve in Israel. Obama was attacking Netanyahu. What did Al-Sisi do at this crucial moment in history as Netanyahu faced potential defeat and Barack Obama used State Department funds to attack Netanyahu?

Al-Sisi declared he spoke with Netanyahu “a lot” thereby providing a great deal of political cover for the embattled Israeli Prime Minister at a pivotal moment. Al-Sisi declared Barack Obama had “turned his back on Egypt”. Al-Sisi asked for American help and a partnership. Barack Obama trashed Al-Sisi and would not even meet nor talk with him. Barack Obama imposed military and economic sanctions against Egypt. Al-Sisi denounced the very idea of Iran having nuclear weapons. Al-Sisi defended Israeli interests and promoted regional stability. In short, Al-Sisi proved he was a friend of the West and the United States and therefore Barack Obama attacked Al-Sisi.

We have always thought that peace in the middle east will require a well-funded (by Saudi billions a year) Egyptian military allied with America to block Iran and Muslim terrorists. We suspect that President Trump shares our views. That’s why today, President Trump met with President Al-Sisi and on Wednesday for the second time hosts Jordanian King Abdullah II. Later in the month President Trump will meet with Mahmoud Abbas.

These meetings are a warning to not only the “Palestinian” leadership but also to Iran. Watch out fellas! It’s President Donald J. Trump you are dealing with, not weakling Barack Hussein Obama. Trump is about to castle on your azz.

We recently discussed the likelihood of all out war against North Korea or at the very least a powerful attack. We suspect the meeting this week with the Chinese President is President Trump castling before his attack on the North Korean dictatorship which threatens the United States.

Speaking after talks at the defence ministry with his South Korean counterpart Han Min-koo, Mr Mattis told reporters that “any attack on the United States, or our allies, will be defeated, and any use of nuclear weapons would be met with a response that would be effective and overwhelming“.

North Korea conducted its fifth test of a nuclear device last year, and claims it is capable of carrying out a nuclear attack on the US, though experts are still unconvinced its technology has progressed that far.

It has also said in recent weeks that it has a new intercontinental ballistic missile, capable of reaching the US mainland, which it is prepared to test launch at any time.

The latest North Korean missile launch has been submarine based. An intercontinental ballistic missile might not be necessary for North Korea to attack the United States (presumably California or Hawaii – both states Trump lost in his election).

President Trump does not have to lecture the Chinese president on any of this. The Chinese president knows all this and knows that under Obama nothing was done to stop North Korea. But, it is President Trump now. President Donald J. Trump.

President Trump is about to tell the Chinese President to prepare to pay for food and homes for 25 million refugees from North Korea. Just as immigration is the #1 nexus issue for President Trump, China might have an immigration crisis soon too. “Do something to stop North Korea Mr. Chinese President, or else!”

It’s chess, American style. President Trump just castled. Get ready to rumble.

Sarah Palin is so smart. Idiots mock Sarah Palin because they don’t like her speaking voice, or her manner of speaking, or her education outside the Ivy League. The idiots think Sarah Palin is an idiot. But Sarah Palin is so so smart.

Sarah Palin will work to defeat House Speaker Paul Ryan by backing his primary opponent in Wisconsin, the former Alaska governor told CNN’s Jake Tapper.

Palin said in an interview that airs Sunday on “State of the Union” that her decision was sparked by Ryan’s bombshell announcement to Tapper last week that he wasn’t yet ready to support Donald Trump, the Republican presumptive nominee. Palin endorsed Trump back in January.

“I think Paul Ryan is soon to be ‘Cantored,’ as in Eric Cantor,” Palin said, referring to the former Republican House majority leader who was ousted in a shocking upset in 2014 when challenger Dave Brat ran to his right in a Virginia primary.

“His political career is over but for a miracle because he has so disrespected the will of the people, and as the leader of the GOP, the convention, certainly he is to remain neutral, and for him to already come out and say who he will not support is not a wise decision of his,” Palin continued.

Sarah Palin did Donald J. Trump a solid. Trump’s hands are clean on this because he did not coordinate with Palin on the very clear threat to Speaker of the House Paul Ryan. Trump can proceed in good faith to his Thursday meeting with Paul Ryan. Trump should listen to Paul Ryan then conclude the meeting with a firm “go to hell”.

When Paul Ryan declares that the GOP “standard bearer” should bear the GOP standard what Paul Ryan means is “Trump without Trumpism”. Paul Ryan will tolerate Donald Trump only if Trump does what loser Paul Ryan commands. “… Trump had yet to prove he shared the conservative values and principles necessary to be the party’s standard-bearer” means Paul Ryan wants Trump to be the GOP establishment chump. Trump without Trumpism is what the GOP establishment and Paul Ryan demand.

The GOP establishment goal is to sabotage Trump and the new emerging Republican Party so the ancien régime can maintain control and maintain their privileges. The ancien régime will do nothing for the American people other than continue the disaster of policies which weaken American workers with low wage policies and turn America into a garrison state for international taskmasters. Trump rejects all that.

This is where we elevate Sarah Palin to “very smart” status. Sarah Palin was merely “smart” when she Kabonged the treacherous Paul Ryan with a threat, not only to his Speakership, but to his very existence as a legislator. But Sarah Palin must be considered “very smart” because of what Sarah Palin sees, that we saw long ago, and that the GOP establishment only at this very late date begins to perceive.

We, Sarah Palin, and a few others see that there is a New Republican Party rising. Pretty boy Paul Ryan and the GOP establishment want to abort the birth of the New Republican Party.

That is what this election cycle is about. You can’t “Make America Great Again” without a new political establishment. The New Republican Party, built with the bones of the Obama destroyed Democratic Party of old, is rising.

THERE CAN BE NO PEACE BETWEEN DONALD J. TRUMP AND THE GOP ESTABLISHMENT. FOR THE NEW REPUBLICAN PARTY TO RISE AND MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN THE GOP ESTABLISHMENT MUST DIE.

The GOP establishment knows of their death to come. So the ancien régime dreams fevered dreams and new plots to stop their own funeral.

There can be no peace. The GOP establishment must be killed. Consider, both major political parties for their own selfish reasons, seek to impose illegal immigration amnesty, common core, disaster trade policies such as TPP. Both parties are in cahoots on these issues. Donald J. Trump is against illegal immigration amnesty, common core, disaster trade policies.

The GOP establishment wants to sell the notion that the problem with Donald J. Trump is one of “tone” and bombastic “personality”. But the GOP establishment’s problem with Donald J. Trump is one of policy. That’s why there can be no peace. One must die for the other to live.

Donald J. Trump is against what both the Democratic Party and the Republican Party want to impose on this nation. Recall that many of the abominations of the Obama gangster government were birthed by Republicans. TARP, Common Core, bailouts, trade deals – were authored by George W. Bush and then co-authored by Barack Obama. ObamaCare? It used to be called RomneyCare.

Donald J. Trump is against what both the Democratic Party of Barack Obama and the Republican Party of George W. Bush have imposed on American citizens. The American people are against what the Democratic Party of Barack Obama and the Republican Party of George W. Bush have wrought. That’s why there is a New Republican Party rising.

Donald J. Trump, aided and abetted by the voters, will bring about a realignment – a New Republican Party. Sarah Palin will help birth the New Republican Party.

The fourth GOP debate is the big one. The first debate was important because it was the opportunity for the GOP establishment to stop Donald J. Trump from getting on the stage. Once Trump got on the stage with senators and governors to debate, his biggest weakness (not considered a serious candidate) would be overcome. Trump triumphed.

The second debate was important because it was the last chance for the GOP establishment to finish off Donald J. Trump and bring back Bush. Trump triumphed.

The third debate turned into a mess due to Big Media moderators thinking they are the stars, not the candidates. Because the status quo was maintained, Trump triumphed.

The fourth GOP debate is the big one. It should be the moment when Trump crushes the opposition.

“My goal is to make myself invisible,” Cavuto, one of three moderators for the prime-time debate, said in an interview last week. “That I’m not the issue. … That we’re not the issue. The answers to what we’re raising become the issue.”

Bartiromo sounded a similar note: “After that [CNBC] debate, I realized, I knew my marching orders. It was clearer than ever what my marching orders are, and that is to help the viewer, help the voter better understand what each candidate’s plan is; is it a realistic plan, can it work and how is it different from the next guy or gal, and that’s what I plan to focus on.” [snip]

“This stuff in and of itself is riveting. People are tuning in for a reason. They’re engaged in this process, so you don’t have to sell it like some sort of TV drama; it writes itself,” Cavuto said. “So we should just make sure we’re being informative and people feel informed, and we’ll let chips fall where they may.”

And, in a veiled reference to the attacks on CNBC, he added, “Don’t trivialize this, don’t ‘gotcha’ this, don’t make this into something it’s not. It’s a debate on economic issues, it’s not ‘Access Hollywood.’”

Maria Bartoromo, and Neil Cavuto are knowledgeable financial types who draw out information from those they interview. On their financial shows the questions are focused and the answers allowed to be heard.

It’s not just the good moderators. Two additional process changes make the fourth GOP debate potentially the best. The first change is that there will only be eight candidates on the stage. The second change is that the candidates will have 90 seconds to respond.

Add to less candidates, best moderators, more time to respond to questions, the topic of the debate, and we have a potential best debate of the 2016 season.

Donald J. Trump should do very well and Trumpmania will continue. The economy is exactly the topic Trump should do well in. Trump has a detailed tax plan so if he can expound on that he will do well.

Trump also can turn every question on the economy into attacks against Obama and illegal immigration amnesty. Candidates such as Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush will have to defend themselves on the question of illegal immigration amnesty. Dr. Ben Carson has a lot to answer for on this issue as well. Ben Carson should also be questioned about his support for statehood for the bankrupt Puerto Rico.

Dr. Ben Carson has a lot of question to answer in the fourth debate. We don’t mean questions raised about his past dubious representations nor possible support of Obama and Al Sharpton which we consider sideshows.

“I think Trump’s strength in the Republican primary is in significant part due to his challenging of trade and the fact that he says we haven’t defended American interests effectively,” said Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), whose conservative views on trade and immigration align with those of the billionaire mogul.

Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson said Friday that he supports the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement negotiated by the White House – aligning himself more with the GOP’s establishment wing than with the social conservatives who have powered his campaign.

Mr. Carson’s backing of the 12-nation Pacific trade deal places him at odds with Donald Trump, his chief rival for support among anti-establishment Republicans. Mr. Carson had expressed skepticism about the TPP, saying in a June interview with the Huffington Post that he would not give President Barack Obama “fast-track” authority to negotiate the deal.

Now, a day after the White House posted the text of the TPP deal online, Mr. Carson’s campaign said Friday that he supports the final product.

Mr. Carson, spokesman Doug Watts said, “believes the agreement does help to level the playing field in key markets and is important to improve our ties to trading partners in Asia as a counterbalance to China’s influence in the region.” Mr. Watts said Mr. Carson is “now inclined to support TPP, with reservations.”

The fourth GOP debate will be the last ditch attempt for a bunch of candidates to keep noses above water. Jeb Bush needs a blisteringly brilliant performance to avoid his fate as a Thanksgiving turkey. Rand Paul? Who cares? Paul will soon be begging for votes in Kentucky to keep his senate seat. Carly Fiorina? She has no rationale for running other than her silly presumption that Hillary Clinton is afraid of her. Kasich? If he dares to speak after the Trump thumping in the last debate we will be surprised – Kasich is going the way of Lehman Brothers.

The only candidates of significance left are Trump, Rubio, Carson, and Cruz. Now that he has joined with Trump in opposition to ObamaTrade, Cruz should survive the fourth debate. But Rubio and Carson? – two peas in a pod. Trump will have them for lunch.

At the fourth GOP debate, ObamaTrade should be front and center as the issue that separates the real candidates from the Obama collaborators.

Or rather, CNBC caved to the demand from Trump. Carson co-signed the letter that Trump sent to the network, but it ain’t Dr. Ben who’s delivering an extra 10 million viewers or so to these things.

Pretty simple calculation for CNBC: Enjoy two hours of boffo ratings with Trump as your star or three hours of middling ratings for special guest star Jeb Bush. [snip]

Anyway: With 10 candidates on stage, figure a minute for each opening and closing statement plus 20 minutes for commercials each hour and you’ve got one hour of actual Q&A — which includes the time needed by the moderators to actually pose the questions. Not including their openings and closings, each candidate should end up with … four minutes of speaking time, maybe? Five?

Let’s be the first to say it: Ban these debates. All of them. The public gets nothing from these phony filled-with-baloney “debates”. What are these phony “debates” about? The public gets nothing by way of information from them, the candidates get “free” airtime, the TV station gets money from commercials. The public gets screwed. Find another format and get rid of these phony debates. We suggest gladiatorial spectacles as in ancient Rome with candidates physically assaulting each other.

Get rid of these phony debates. These debates all have an agenda and it is not an agenda for the voter to get informed. On the Republican side it is attacks on Trump all the time. It’s attempts to prop up little Jebbie Bush as his pawns try to take down Trump. On the Hillary side, there is no one for her to debate.Sanders and the rest of the Obama fluffers are not serious applicants even for a McDonalds’ janitorial management job let alone fit to be in any “debate” with the word “presidential” in the description. Get rid of these debates.

Maybe, if the Villages idiot – Mourning Joe Biden – decides to do as Obama wants and runs against Hillary then we can see one debate against these two. But then, basta! Enough! As to the Republicans, there is only Trump or Jeb Bush and the satire magazine The Onion provides the best commentary on JeBush:

CONCORD, NH—Emphasizing the allure and appeal of the 30-foot length of electrical power cable that shared the stage with the former Florida governor, sources confirmed that an orange three-pronged extension cord completely stole the spotlight from Jeb Bush during a New Hampshire campaign rally Friday. “Jeb made some interesting points about the need to prioritize national security, but ultimately he was just completely overshadowed by the far more riveting extension cord running along the floor beside him,” said political pundit Chris Wallace, who acknowledged that attendees appeared more energized by the flexible orange cable taped to the stage and noted that the one-time GOP frontrunner repeatedly failed to connect with the audience as effectively as the cord. “Unfortunately for Jeb, no matter what he did throughout the night, he just looked bland and flat compared to that extension cord. He’s not going to want to bring that piece of electrical equipment with him to any more rallies if he wants voters’ attention to stay directed at him.” At press time, the Bush campaign team was rapidly assembling a focus group to learn how the candidate could be more like the extension cord.

Hillary Clinton is up against Bernie Sanders, a man about as interesting as an intermittently working light bulb. Donald Trump is up against a dauphin less interesting than an extension cord.

Do we need more dim bulb debates? More no energy dullards on stage? No! CNBC, in order to have more time for commercials, wanted another three hour debate. Donald Trump said “NO” and Donald Trump won:

Again, that’s not a problem for Trump, who can get 30 minutes of cable-news time to riff on whatever he wants anytime he wants simply by dialing up CNN or whoever and asking to be put on the air. On the contrary: Both as the frontrunner and as a guy whose grasp of policy detail is not, shall we say, his chief selling point, he has every incentive at this point to keep the debates as short as possible.

Let’s assume, for arguments sake, that Donald Trump wants less time for self-interested entirely selfish, politically motivated reasons. None of that matters. Donald Trump won the larger debate over who is the dog and who is the tail. Big Media efforts to convince the public, the political parties, and the candidates, that Big Media is the big dog and the political process is the tail just got beat by Donald Trump. Donald Trump is the new Big Dog and Big Media is what comes out of the dog in the tail region. Donald Trump did what we have advised candidates to do since 2007 and that is why Donald Trump is a leader who wins and wins and wins:

CNBC Agrees to Two-Hour Debate: This Is Why Donald Trump Is Winning

While every other Republican remained publicly silent, frontrunner Donald Trump got his closest rival, Dr. Ben Carson, to join with him and together they stood up and said, “No.”

This kept Trump in the headlines and at the top of the news cycle throughout yesterday afternoon and this morning. And now we’ve learned that Trump and Carson won. The DC/NY media agreed to the frontrunners’ demands.

Does anyone in the weak-kneed Republican Establishment, or among the bubbled-morons in the Punditocracy, have any more questions about why The Donald appears to be coasting to the Republican nomination for President of the United States? [snip]

Look who publicly stood up to the media. Look who punched back by threatening to boycott the debate and used their leverage as frontrunners to get CNBC to back down.

This morning CNBC caved and agreed to a two-hour debate. The RNC also believes the candidates will get their opening and closing statements.

Let me put this as simply as possible for the GOPSmartSet-impaired: The Republicans will not win the White House in 2016 with yet another “electable” squish. We need a standard-bearer who is not only willing to stand up to the media but who also knows how to prevail against the media. [snip]

Strength and competence wins the respect of voters and by extension their confidence and their votes. And right now, while Establishment candidates like Jeb Bush go full-Beta, the only Republican candidate showing both strength and competence is Donald Trump.

Trump is in command.

A Bill Clinton axiom is “Better to be strong and wrong, than weak and right.” The new Big Dog, Donald Trump, understands and fights. Donald J. Trump is not only right, he’s strong enough to fight for what’s right. Trump is strong, and not wrong.

The third Republican debate will be under the command and control of Donald J. Trump. CNBC will try to take Trump down at the debate but at every turn Trump will be able to say that CNBC is attacking Trump in vengeance for lost commercial dollars. And that is why Donald J. Trump just won the third GOP debate.

CNBC and the Lilliputians will still try to take down Trump. Already we have seen how Megyn Kelly teamed up with Carly “Fizzles” Fiorina to sneer against Trump.

After the second debate Big Media proclaimed Carly Fiorina’s performance to be spectacular and Rich Lowry on Fox News declared Fiorina to have cut off Trump’s testicles. Our modest prediction was that Fizzles Fiorina would “rise and rise and rise from the low single digits to the high single digits.” Our prediction came true along with our “poof” addendum that after the rise Fizzles Fiorina would be back to low single digits. Done and done.

Fizzles Fiorina, as devastated as she is, compares favorably to what Donald Trump has done to the rest of the field of dreamers. Have you seen the financial results for the last quarter as filed by the candidates?

Donald Trump’s campaign collected $4 million in the third quarter, roughly the same as Florida Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL). The real difference, though, is that Trump’s campaign hasn’t conducted any fundraising efforts.

Almost all of that $4 million total is from “unsolicited” donations. People simply sent his campaign money without being asked for it. [snip]

The result is that Trump, without trying, raised far more than Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) and was largely in-line with major challengers Rubio and businesswomen Carly Fiorina. [snip]

According to the most recent FEC filing, Jeb Bush’s campaign was spending more than $3.5 million each month during the Summer.

Donald Trump has spent the least amount of any of the major candidates. Through the entire campaign so far, Trump has spent just over $5 million total.

Republican frontrunner Donald Trump spent more on hats, bumper stickers, yard signs and t-shirts than he did on any other category in the third quarter, according to his latest campaign finance report filed on Thursday. [snip]

In typical presidential campaigns, top expenditures are usually payroll, mailings and consultants.

But those items did not feature largely on Trump’s report. The filing, made with the Federal Election Commission, contained no line item for payroll at all. [snip]

Trump raised nearly $4 million in the third quarter. In total, the campaign has raised $5.8 million and spent $5.6 million. Despite proclamations that he would self-fund his candidacy, Trump still raked in unsolicited donations from nearly 74,000 people, who gave an average of $50.46.

“The high life has ended,” said one Florida operative familiar with the campaign’s operation. [snip]

“At a certain point, we want to see a bang for the buck. We’re spending the bucks — and we’re seeing no bang,” a longtime Bush Republican said.

Bush is stuck at 7 percent in an average of national polls. [snip]

In New Hampshire, seen by many as a must-win for Bush, Bush and the Right to Rise super PAC backing him have spent at least $4.8 million on TV and radio to support him since early September. One ad-tracking firm produced an analysis for POLITICO that showed pro-Bush spots in the past three weeks have occupied about 60 percent of the political ad air-time in the state. Bush’s numbers have moved from 9 perrcent [sic] to 8.7 percent since the ad blitz began, according to the Real Clear Politics averages of polls in the GOP primary. [snip]

But when asked how he plans to improve his standing, Bush himself has been blunt: “I’m going to do something really novel,” he said last week. “It’s called advertising.” [snip]

“In the past, advertising was a show of strength. Now, if you’re advertising it’s because you’re in a weak position,” said Elizabeth Wilner, senior vice president of Kantar Media Ad Intelligence overseeing its Campaign Media Analysis Group.

TipToes JeBush can barely keep his nose above water.

Self-funded Donald J. Trump has a “burn rate” lower than the money Americans are sending him! And Trump is tops! JeBush spends like a drunk sailor in a Nevada whorehouse. And Bush is drowning! Carson? Ben Carson is making money to spend money:

In the three-month period that ended September 30, the campaign spent 53 cents for every dollar it raised. That number was down slightly from 64 cents for every dollar raised in the second quarter of the year.

Spending top dollar on fundraising has enabled the campaign to assemble a list of more than two million donors from whom it raises between $200,000 and $350,000 per day, a campaign spokesman said.

In all, Mr. Carson directed $11 million of the $14 million he spent in the third quarter to fundraising costs.

Get Dr. Carson to the burn unit at the hospital as a patient. Bad, bad, burn rate. He raised $20 million last quarter but already spent $14 million.

Donald J. Trump is winning every poll in every state, every national poll, consistently, month after month even as he spends less than the other major candidates. The new polls shatter the dreamers:

He first took the lead in the RCP national poll average on July 20, so next week will mean three full months at the top. And Trump is far ahead of the two squabbling candidates, Bush and Rubio, in the early-voting states:

1) In Iowa, Trump is up by 17 over Bush, and 18 over Rubio, according to the most recent poll, by the Wall Street Journal.

2) In New Hampshire, Trump is up by 10 over Bush and 11 over Rubio, according to the Journal.

3) In South Carolina, Trump is up by 25 over Rubio and 30 over Bush in a brand-new CNN poll.

4) In Nevada, Trump is up by 31 over Rubio and 32 over Bush, according to CNN.

GOP frontrunner Donald Trump is not only leading all national and state polls, but he’s trouncing his other GOP opponents in their own states as voters soundly turn against established government leaders in favor of the New York real estate billionaire.

On Thursday, the trend continued, with a new Rutgers-Eagleton poll in New Jersey showing Trump soundly defeating all challengers and coming in several points ahead of Gov. Chris Christie. The numbers in the poll are as follows, reports The Record:

Christie’s numbers dropped from 12 percent in August, according to the poll, while Trump’s rose, from 21 percent. [snip]

The latest Quinnipiac University poll shows Trump holding double-digit leads against both Bush and Rubio, with Trump at 28 percent, Rubio at 14 percent, and Bush at 12 percent.

Trump is also leading in Florida over Rubio and Bush among Hispanics, a group with which both Florida leaders share ties, reports Breitbart. According to a September Public Policy Polling survey, Trump defeated Bush among Hispanics by 37 to 29 percent, and defeated Rubio by one percentage point. [snip]

Trump is also defeating Ohio Gov. John Kasich, even though the Republican governor has been enormously popular among his own state’s residents, reports The Columbus Dispatch, reporting last week on a Quinnipiac Poll that focused on Ohio and two other swing states, Florida and Pennsylvania.

The numbers were:

Trump, 23 percent

Carson, 18 percent

Kasich, 13 percent

Cruz, 11 percent

Fiorina, 10 percent

“Gov. John Kasich’s big card was his enormous popularity in Ohio, generally considered the most important swing state in the November election,” said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll.

“But with Trump zooming well past him in the Buckeye State and Kasich’s numbers in Florida and Pennsylvania in low single digits, the Ohio governor’s campaign is going in the wrong direction,” Brown said.

Graham, who has represented South Carolina for several years, recorded an embarrassing defeat in a CNN/ORC poll released Wednesday that gave Trump 36 percent, compared to 5 percent for Graham.

Rand Paul in Kentucky and Ted Cruz in Texas are not beating Trump either. Trump tops them all, consistently. That’s something not even Hillary Clinton can boast in her primary against non-entities.

Donald Trump has triumphed in the third GOP debate even before it is held. It’s not just the third debate though. Donald Trump might have won this primary already. It’s only a few more months until Iowa votes on February 1 and if JeBush cannot advertise himself out of the circling drain, Trump will flush him along with the rest of the, um, schleps.

Either Jeb Bush or Donald Trump will win the Republican nomination for president. There is no other. As we’ve explained, the GOP primary season process was fixed for Jeb Bush to win (via the low number of debates, the high number of candidates, the financial and institutional collaborators), but Trump came along and now the advantages built in for Jeb Bush assist Donald Trump. What we witness now is pieces of the broken Jeb Bush machine re-purposed, in an Apollo 13 catastrophe style attempt, to fulfill the original aim of getting Jeb Bush the nomination.

The problem in all this is that Jeb Bush is dog food the dogs won’t eat. Jeb Bush policies are opposed by the majority of GOP voters (especially on illegal immigration and Common Core). The Jeb Bush name does not help him, so he erases “Bush” from his campaign.

The Jeb Bush strategy now is to put new shiny labels on his dog food can to distract the voter/consumer. But that won’t work either unless the best selling dog food sold by Donald Trump, the food wanted by millions, is kept off the supermarket shelves. So how to keep Donald Trump brand food off the shelves? Flood the market with new shiny product that will force the Donald Trump brand lower down the shelves and eventually off the shelves entirely.

The latest pawn in the attack Trump ploy is none other than Dr. Ben Carson. Like Perry, Jindal, Graham, and the rest, Carson is but a pawn used by the GOP establishment to attack Trump in order to benefit JeBush. [snip]

The next pawn called to duty will be Fiorina at the debate or maybe even John Kasich. Fiorina will get her face time at the CNN debate but not much else. Fake outrage by her fans and Big Media Trump haters can only get you so far. [snip]

Soon the pawns will all lay dead on the chess table and only the despised and deposed JeBush will remain to Stop Trump.

The Republican nomination will go either to JeBush or Donald Trump. There is no other.

That’s what we saw at the second GOP debate. Jeb Bush remains as unsavory as ever. The last pawn that was sold as the guy to take down Trump proved himself to be an OK doc and not much more. And the latest pawn, Carly Fiorina, is now the next to lay dead on the chess table.

No doubt with all the pimping by Big Media and the Jeb Bush machine Carly Fiorina’s poll numbers will rise and rise and rise from the low single digits to the high single digits or more. Then poof. She’ll be with Ben Carson in the used underwear box.

Oddly, part of Donald Trump’s victory last night is due to the failure of CNN to hit Donald Trump very hard. That’s not to say that CNN did not try to take Trump down. They did. CNN and the RNC stacked the audience with GOP establishment drones. Further, CNN wasted the first hour with “Donald said this and we want you to respond by trashing him” type questions. All that did was make Donald Trump the undisputed center of attention and leader of the conversation on everything and everyone. CNN went so far as to end the first section of the debate, before a commercial break, with Donald Trump’s comments about Carly Fiorina’s face left to linger in the viewers mind. Like a prosecutor with a weak case, CNN used every trick to rig the jury.

What did appear was a Donald Trump quote about Carly Fiorina’s face, said to Rolling Stone magazine, which Trump unconvincingly states was really about Fiorina’s “persona.” Trump essentially waved that off by saying Fiorina is beautiful with a beautiful face. It was a statement that convinced no one. Fiorina cleverly played a “war on women” type card against Trump; a card which Fiorina usually decries when Hillary Clinton pulls it out of her deck. But what made us swallow hard came at the very end. When asked to give herself a Secret Service code name Fiorina responded by saying she would like her Secret Service code name to be “Secretariat”. Yeah, the horse. For a woman whose attractiveness is made mock of, it is odd that she would venture into John Kerry horse-face territory. So much for being quick on your hooves, er, feet.

As to the other pawns not much changed. Marco Rubio persisted with his “A” student in third grade antics – full of wide smiles and well written essay question responses to impress teacher – but not much else. Chris Christie tried to fit a 9/11 life saver around his waist to stop from sinking – but he needs a much bigger hole to squeeze into. Scott Walker sweated. John Kasich said something or other few remember. Ted Cruz stared into the camera and gave lectures. Huckabee buzzed every now and then. Rand Paul was a fur toy for big dog Donald Trump who slapped Rand Paul around – which led to our favorite funny Trump moment of the night: “I never attacked him or his looks, and believe me, there’s plenty of subject matter right there.” Ouch!

That was about it for an all out Trump attack. Mostly The Donald sees he’s close to winning and how the strategic landscape now benefits him. Having previously neutered hater Hugh Hewitt, Trump succeeded in his aim to make the CNN debate a bit fairer to himself, although he could do nothing about the stacked audience in the hall. Trump mostly complimented people on the stage even if the compliments benefited Trump more than the complimented. All in all Trump was generous and tried to smile and be bland. Except….

Except when it came to Jeb Bush. Repeatedly Donald Trump beat up on Jeb Bush. Ever so briefly Trump mentioned Bush’s support of Common Core. Bush speaking Spanish on the campaign trail was challenged by Trump. Trump smartly declared that English is the common tongue of the land and that there is a need for assimilation by immigrants. Then he beat up and humiliated weak Jeb Bush some more.

How tone deaf was Jeb Bush? Consider the horsey nature of Carly Fiorina’s “Secretariat” response. That wasn’t bright but it only hurts Fiorina on a comic level. But Jeb Bush, in response to a silly question about what woman’s picture should be on American currency, responded with “Margaret Thatcher.” Jeb Bush could not think of an American woman who should be on American currency. See the problem?

It’s not about Spanish or the ability to speak foreign languages. We applaud anyone who is able and willing to speak foreign languages whether they be of the spoken, digital, musical, or sign language type. The problem here is that Jeb Bush does not see the problem of running for president while communicating in Spanish to the electorate.

It’s not Margaret Thatcher that is the problem. It’s not Spanish that is the problem. The problem is that Jeb Bush is for illegal immigration amnesty, is making a rank appeal to activists that disrespect borders, and to Chamber of Commerce types that want a low wage society. Jeb Bush like Barack Obama also cannot discern that the job of American president is in some very real way to be a cheerleader of and for the American nation. Jeb Bush is repulsed by that part of the job which Donald Trump embraces with vigor and happiness.

Jeb Bush somehow does not grasp that he is walking for president of the United States not social justice warrior of the world. That’s a job already taken by Barack Obama. Jeb Bush does not grasp that he is not on the debate stage to be community organizer of the United States. The job is President of the United States and Donald Trump beat up on Jeb Bush on the very issue and that is how Donald Trump won the debate. It’s either Jeb Bush or Donald Trump. There is no other.

Update:Echelon Insights post-debate poll: Trump 29, Carson 10, Fiorina 9, Rubio 9, Bush 9. Call him “Zombie Trump” because the GOP establishment and Big Media put him in a coffin, nail it shut, bury him, and still… Zombie Trump. Lots of caveats with this Patrick Ruffini online poll based on Googled information, and Trump is actually down a few statistical noise points from the last Echelon, but still Zombie Trump walks, talks and is fresh as a daisy – confirming all the recent polls that Trump is still tops. The news from this poll? Look at the man for whom the GOP establishment tried to fix this primary election. Bush is 20 points behind Trump. Call the medics!

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Let’s start with our “very big big big question for Fox News, Megyn Kelly, Chris Wallace, and Bret Baier”: Does Fox News or do any of you have email? or Twitter? or assistants? or texting capacity? or cell phones? or phones? or access to the internet? or Facebook? We hear you do have such advanced technology and have many assistants at work for Fox News. Which leads to a whole lotta other questions.

Now, we know that Fox News wanted to bait Trump to anger so that the guards waiting off stage could come in and perp walk The Donald off the stage. We already wrote about that. We quoted the L.A. Times quoting Bret Baier about the well crafted strategy to ignominiously dump Trump in front of millions after Trump fell into a Cecil the lion type well crafted trap. We know about the anti-Trump strategy, but doesn’t some form of decency and respect as a “fair and balanced” news organization compel a slight change in strategy when a big news event occurs?

Before 8:00 p.m. on debate night (the debate started at 9:00) a rather astounding event occurred. This event was massive in impact, had many implications for Obama, Hillary2016, Republicans, Republican candidates for president, the 2016 elections, war, peace, Europe, the Middle East, and of course impacted the economy and just about everything else. The shocking non-shocker is that this event was a total surprise yet not a completely total surprise and therefore a lot of people anticipated this event, feared this event, or hoped for this event, but in any case were on the lookout for this event. Well before the debate began this event occurred. Fox News viewers, all 24 million lured by Donald Trump’s appearance, heard not a beep or a peep about this stunning event.

The event? Democratic Senator and presumed to be the next leader of the Senate Democrats Chuck Schumer declared his opposition to Obama’s give-Iran-the-nuclear-bomb deal. Move-on immediately attacked Schumer as did James Fallows on Twitter – all well before 8:00, an hour before the debate. Chuck Schumer has long been considered THE vote in congress that could block Obama’s treachery because Schumer wields a lot of influence as a Jewish member of Congress and of course that little bit that he is the Senator from New York. Oh, and on the House side Elliot Engel joined Schumer to oppose the Obama gift to Iranian Valerie Jarrett and the haters of Jews and Israel.

Did Fox News viewers learn of any of this on the night when fifty million eyeballs were tuned on Fox News? No. Not a word. Thomas Sowell, not a Trump fan at all, denounced the debate “moderators” because of their “disservice” to the country on the Iran issue.

Megyn Kelly did not think this was worthy of a question to the Republican candidates for president. Neither did Chris Wallace who frequently indulges himself with foreign policy on his Sunday TV show on Fox News. Bret Baier also did not think this news about Iran merited a mention let alone a question to the assembled presidential candidates for the Republican nomination.

There was an Iran question buried in the middle of the debate. But imagine if the very first question from Bret Baier was an announcement about the Chuck Schumer opposition to Obama’s Iran deal and the question was “Raise your hand if you agree with Democrat Senator Chuck Schumer that the Obama Iran deal is bad.” Would have led to an entirely different night, right? But the strategy was to dump on Trump and not even a world shaking event would be allowed to distract from that main mission. Or we could be wrong and Fox News does not have texting, email, assistants, or breaking news gathering capacity.

The viewing public and Donald Trump saw the attempt to trash Trump. Unless the viewer had political motivation(s) or was in favor of another candidate and enjoyed the Fox News alliance to destroy Trump and advance the candidate of choice it was apparent to all that Fox News structured (Bret Baier’s word) the questions to take down Trump.

Donald Trump noticed and that’s why Donald Trump went to war against Fox News. Trump has been the star of a “reality show” and dealt with the assaults from tabloid media. Trump knows that how you “structure” (Bret Baier’s word) a debate or a reality show will determine the outcome. Trump saw the threat and instead of ignoring the threat he threatened back.

Now, many say Trump should just have let it all go and stuck to his issues. That was the advice of now removed Trump advisor Roger Stone and even Rush Limbaugh. To be frank, we would prefer Trump stick to the issues. We don’t think the attacks against Megyn Kelly, Chris Wallace, and Bret Baier are the course we think is wise. Not our preference. But at the same time we do think that Donald Trump was wise in his attacks against Megyn Kelly, Chris Walace, Bret Baier, and Fox News.

Why is Donald Trump’s war on Fox News wise? Because presidents and presidential candidates do not get to determine the issues. They can only pick and choose which to run on. But then some issues sort of creep up on you or jump on you. Picture the next president who wants to base his/her presidency on domestic issue X. But then in the first week in office Iran explodes a nuke. Continue with domestic issue X, or wake up and address the issue that just jumped on you. Presidential candidates that say “we must stay focused on the issue of blah-blah” while the public wants another issue addressed are stupid losers.

A president comes into office and wants to do X. But then H happens and all hell breaks loose. The president that persists with X and ignores H is going to get in trouble. There is something to not getting distracted, but sometimes what you think is a distraction, is the distraction that people want addressed.

The GOP establishment wanted the issue to be X. The GOP establishment did not want to speak about illegal immigration. Donald Trump spoke about illegal immigration and the public responded. The GOP establishment is not happy because a candidate came forth that spoke about what the public wanted to hear, not what the GOP establishment wanted to hear.

Donald Trump was smart enough to see that Fox News and the political establishment (as we define it that includes both political parties, lobbyists, Big Media, etc. etc.) was out to get him. The public saw that Big Media and the establishment were out to trash Trump. That became the issue the public wanted addressed. Was Trump really tough enough? Would Trump take on his “allies” on Fox News? Would Trump defend himself thereby giving the public confidence that Trump would defend the country? Or was Trump a tough talking schlemiel? Trump gave the public what the public wanted and thereby saved himself from the plots and schemes of Big Media and the GOP establishment.

So Trump went to war. It was a bloody war. In the end peace reigns. But it was a peace won through strength. Donald Trump won the war on Fox News because Trump stood strong.

The vast technological apparatus of modern political warfare targeted Donald Trump and Donald Trump won.

“Well I think he’s probably right, I am the most fabulous whiner. I do whine, because I want to win,” Trump said on CNN’s “New Day” when host Chris Cuomo asked about Lowry’s remarks in a New York Post column.

“I am a whiner, and I’m a whiner and I keep whining and whining until I win. I want to win for our country, and I’m going to make our country great again,” Trump said on CNN.

“Our country right now is a debtor nation, we have airports that are third-world airports, we have roadways that are falling apart, we have bridges that are coming down and that are unsafe,” Trump added.

The fun bit of the “whining?” It was on CNN, not Fox News. Build up CNN, ignore Fox News was the Trump strategy and it worked. But no one should think that while the GOP establishment waged all out war against Donald Trump, that Donald Trump waged all out war. Donald Trump was actually kinda nice.

Donald Trump did not once play the race card against the Red State Gestapo that disinvited him to their rally. Trump could have noted in a loud voice that Red State did not invite Ben Carson to the event at all. “It was racism” Trump could have baited. Trump likewise could have highlighted in Big Media appearances the sexist attacks against Sarah Palin by Fox News that Bristol Palin wrote about:

It’s official. I used to use this blog to point out how liberals use the “outrage industry” to manipulate people and keep their power. Now Republicans are just as bad.

By now you’ve undoubtedly heard that there’s a guy named Erick Erickson, of RedState, who disinvited Donald Trump from a gathering of conservatives because, as he put it, “there are even lines blunt talkers and unprofessional politicians should not cross. Decency is one of those lines.”

Want to learn some “lessons in sexual and political decency” from Erickson? Here are three: [snip]

And we get the Fox moderators asking questions that the New York Times applauds? Please. Let’s don’t use the Democratic “war on women” talking points when we have ISIS to worry about.

Mark Levin said the debates were an “embarrassment as far as I’m concerned… while the New York Times and CNN praised the event, I considered it an exploitation of the process, which is supposed to inform the American people. Not gotcha questions, not gossip… I think the American people are owed an apology.

Oh and before we get off the topic of Fox News and the fact that they are “oh-so-shocked” at the supposed sexism of Donald Trump… here’s a little perspective.

Back in 2010, Chris Wallace joked about having my Mom sit on his lap during an interview. In 2011, Roger Ailes said, “I hired Sarah Palin because she was hot and got ratings.”

Fox and Erickson need to get off their high horse on how outraged they are NOW about sexism and decency.

No, Donald Trump did not go nuclear, but he could have. Donald Trump waged smart war against Fox News. What Trump did was he focused the mind of Roger Ailes on what could happen.

The next GOP debate in September is on CNN. Trump will get that debate ratings as he did last week. CNN can utilize the next debate to raise their ratings. Pre-debate, debate, post-debate, CNN can use the debate to become a news network not the silly station it is now. Trump was willing to help CNN and Roger Ailes saw that. Ailes blinked. Now Trump can get back to other issues.

Peace through strength. It was a great example of how to deal with Iran, ISIS, China, etc. It was presidential.

Speaking of China, who is the candidate that has been talking about China’s manipulation of it’s currency. Who is the candidate that constantly talks about China’s devaluation of its currency which hurts America? Who is the candidate that alerted the world best about the latest China currency devaluation? Um, Trump. The issues that Trump has chosen to highlight are the issues that matter and that the public understands matter and wants addressed.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Tuesday said China’s devaluation of the yuan would be “devastating” for the United States.

“They’re just destroying us,” the billionaire businessman, a long-time critic of China’s currency policy, said in a CNN interview.

“They keep devaluing their currency until they get it right. They’re doing a big cut in the yuan, and that’s going to be devastating for us.” [snip]

China has been a frequent theme for Trump since he entered the 2016 presidential campaign, promising to be a tougher negotiator with Beijing in order to bolster the U.S. economy.

“We have so much power over China,” he told CNN. “China has gotten rich off of us. China has rebuilt itself with the money it’s sucked out of the United States and the jobs that it’s sucked out of the United States.”

The markets agree with Trump. The same Trump that has attacked ObamaTrade policies. The same Trump that sides with unions against the Chamber of Commerce on ObamaTrade – unlike most if not all other candidates except for Saint Bernard.

Maybe now that Trump has won the war against Fox News there will be a “fair and balanced” discussion about how correct Trump has been about China and currency devaluation.

Trump won the war against Fox News when Roger Ailes capitulated and called Trump. Trump then appeared on Fox and Friends (but did not discuss Megyn Kelly) and will appear on Hannity as well. Ailes promised that Fox News coverage will be “fair and balanced” and Trump won. Trump’s victory is bigger than it appears.

Now that Trump has trumped Fox News he is catnip for all news outlets who see the opportunity to exploit the rift to get themselves a little bit of The Donald and those juicy ratings. Read this and weep Fox News:

The feud seemed to thaw Monday after the network’s chairman, Roger Ailes, reached out to Trump directly to clear the air.

“I assured him that we will continue to cover this campaign with fairness & balance,” Ailes said in a statement.

Trump said on Twitter that Ailes had assured him he would always be treated fairly by the network.

“As far as I’m concerned, I’m fine with it,” Trump said in a freewheeling, 30-minute interview with CNN’s “New Day” when asked about the flap after concluding his interview with Fox.

The CNN conversation was much more heated, as host Chris Cuomo pressed Trump on his lack of specific policy proposals since declaring his presidential run. His campaign has said it plans to unveil new policy plans soon.

“They want me to come up with a 10-point plan, a 14-point plan, a 20-point plan. It doesn’t necessarily work that way,” said Trump, who argued that, in business, flexibility is key.

Asked about how he would achieve his goal of simplifying the tax code, Trump responded: “Here’s what you can do: You can have a fair tax, you can have a flat tax, or you can leave the system alone, which is probably the simplest at this point, leave the system alone and take out deductions and lower taxes and do lots of really good things, leaving the system the way it is.”

“And I know exactly what I want to do, I just don’t want to announce it yet,” he added. “I’m just not prepared to tell you right now.” [snip]

On both shows, Trump refused once again to rule out a third-party run.

“We’re going to keep the door open, we’re going to see what happens,” he said on Fox. “I want to run as a Republican But I do want to keep that door open in case I don’t get treated fairly.”

The medium is the message. Notice how Trump made news on CNN even as he returned to Fox News? Trump now has both Fox News and CNN as options. If one screws him, he turns to another. If the Republican establishment screws him there is another option. Want to know our experience with billionaires? Two trains running. Billionaires always have an escape route. Billionaires always want another option. Billionaires and successful people always have a two trains running strategy. If one train stalls, they hop on another. It’s the art of the deal. It’s how to win.

What Donald Trump is doing is exactly what we advised Hillary Clinton to do to MSNBC in 2008. Instead we got one single solitary Hillary quip taking down Chris Matthews to his face when he asked Hillary to come to his show. Hillary should have blasted MSNBC and rallied her troops to her side with the same savage fury Donald Trump supporters have rallied to Donald Trump.

All this leads us to a question: Is anyone in Brooklyn watching The Donald? Will Hillary2016 learn anything from Donald Trump’s victories? The troubles for Hillary2016 are mounting and her response is to issue more position papers and garbage no one is reading or listening to. Those position papers really helped against Obama in 2008 didn’t they? To borrow from Olivander from Harry Potter books: The issues choose the candidate, the candidate does not choose the issues.

We hope for an answer from Brooklyn headquarters someday that is congruent with reality and the issues people care about. We won’t hold our breath for the answer. We do however have an answer to our question as to why Donald Trump calls so many people STUPID LOSERS?

The rest of the candidates and their supporters don’t realize that it’s either Trump or Bush. There is no other. Carly Fiorina is now fluffed by Big Media and the GOP establishment because fluffing Jeb Bush has not worked. So Jeb will sit back and Tweet. Fiorina and Carson or whomever will be fluffed in turn before they are snuffed. Fluff then snuff. Fluff then snuff – the GOP establishment strategy once Trump is dispatched. It’s an attempt to stop Trump using various squirrel candidates, divide the opposition, then having stopped Trump, Mitt Romney Jeb Bush is last one standing. Fluff and snuff. Fluff to snuff Trump, snuff Trump, then snuff them all. Jeb wins without Trump.

So want to know why Donald Trump calls so many people STUPID LOSERS? Because they are.

Why will Fox News capitulate to The Donald? Because tens of thousands of Fox News viewers are boycotting the network. Because tens of thousands of Meggyn Kelly fans are blasting her on her very own Facebook page. Because the Trump interview which drew BLOOD was on CNN opposite Meggyn’s show. Because Trump has the drawing power to hurt Fox News if he continues to target Fox News prime time by going on CNN (which incidentally will host the next debate so Trump getting eyeballs to CNN, building up his CNN cred, and hurting egg-on-her-face Meggyn is triple Trumpnado).

There is also this which proves the Fox News fail and the Trump Triumph: Holy Guacamole Batman! New sciency poll out:

Donald Trump’s lead over his Republican presidential rivals grew substantially in the days following the first GOP debate and his controversial comments about moderator Megyn Kelly.

Some of the dummies will find what we say provocative. But take it from those of us who attended the 2008 Rules and Bylaws Committee of the Democratic National Committee. We know what we are talking about and you are all total dummies no matter how smart you think you are.

We’ll start off slowly. Why do you dummies think that in the early primaries the delegates won will be distributed proportionate to the margin of victory of the (many) candidates? Why do you fools think that the first state that is winner take all is one of the most delegate rich states and that state happens to be Jeb Bush’s Florida? Why do you numbskulls think that there are only about 10 debates this election cycle compared to the 27 of the last election cycle?

All of this is designed to help one candidate snuff out the possibility of a debate based campaign from an undercapitalized candidate and to assure that the candidate with the most money and the biggest organization will be the eventual nominee. That was the plan… it was designed to nominate Jeb Bush… the plan would have worked… but then came Trump.

We know the above are difficult for those who don’t understand the rules of the game or how to win by fixing the rules of the game. Many of you would place bets to win on a horse that is lame and cross-eyed. Yeah, you really like that horse and you’re sure that horse is great so… gee… I’m gonna bet on that horse.

We’re going to post now two good reasons why you are all dummies. Most of you are too stupid to understand so we will try to spell it out for you, if necessary with those magnetic color alphabet sets children stick on refrigerators.

Big Media decides who gets coverage, the type of coverage, which polls to laud, which polls to ignore then uses the coverage and the polls to decide who gets to be a legitimate candidate on the debate stage. It’s an outrage. Worse, the political parties and the political candidates not only put up with this, they encourage the Big Media and establishment corruption of our political process because they are all part of the corrupt establishment.

We’re gonna strain your feeble minds now, even though we’re sure you did not understand our previous paragraph(s), so reach for your Ginko Biloba and try to follow. We know you object to our citation of something we ourselves wrote so now we will quote from someone who has attacked this website, hates this website, and is considered somewhat prominent even though he graduated from the DailyKooks website. Gird yourselves now. There will be some words larger than “cat” and “dog.” Some of the concepts (that means thinky things) might elude (that means you might not understand because you mind is to un-evolved) you but do try and follow, idiots:

Stage 6: Endgame

When it happens: June through Republican National Convention, July 18-21Potential threat to Trump: The Republican Party does everything in its power to deny him the nomination.

If Trump makes it past Stage 4, we’ll have to consider his campaign successful, up to a point. He’ll have gotten further than any similar candidate has in the past. But he’d still be a long way from winning the nomination, and the final two stages might be his hardest yet.

The Republican Party’s delegate selection rules are straightforward in some states but byzantine in others, especially in caucus states where delegates are sometimes not formally pledged to the candidate who apparently earned their support on election night. Furthermore, about 7 percent of delegates to the RNC are party leaders — what Democrats would call “superdelegates” — who are usually not bound by the results of the popular vote in their states at all.

This introduces a little bit of slack into the system. It works in favor of establishment-backed candidates, or those who have an intricate understanding of the delegate rules. And it works against candidates like Trump.

Regular FiveThirtyEight readers will be familiar with “The Party Decides” paradigm of the nomination process. It posits that the nominee represents the consensus choice of influential members of the party, and that rank-and-file voters serve mostly to vet and validate the candidates in the event of a close call.

Much of the party’s influence consists of what you might call “soft power,” the ability to influence outcomes by persuasion rather than coercion. But the party also has some “hard power”: It literally makes the rules. It can rule against candidates it doesn’t like in the event of delegate-counting disputes. It can probably even change the rules midstream. There isn’t a lot of precedent to worry about violating, since it’s been 40 years since Republicans came close to a brokered convention.

If Trump made it this far, the Republican Party would go to extraordinary lengths to avoid nominating him. In “The Party Decides” view, parties are basically looking for two things from their nominees: They want them to be reliable (meaning, they can be counted on to enact the Republican agenda once in office), and they want them to be electable (meaning, they can win in November).

Hold your horses dummies. By now you are saying “aha, you see Donald Trump will never win. Why is this article calling supporters of other candidates stupid when what that article clearly states is that Trump can’t win the Republican Party nomination?” Now take your meds and try to follow the reasoning (thinky things) of what we have just written.

We’ll explain it to you now: This GOP primary election is a fix. The entire primary process and schedule was designed to nominate Jeb Bush. But Donald Trump surprised everyone and got in the race. Donald Trump has the money. Donald Trump has the Big Media expertise. Donald Trump has the experience of dealing in politics and with politicians. It was all “fixed” for Jeb Bush and then Trump got in.
As we wrote before, Trump can win. Why? Trump can win because he can take advantage of the fix that was set up to benefit Jeb Bush. Put that in your jock straps and wiggle.

Donald Trump has the financial advantage Jeb Bush thought he would have. Donald Trump can not only win (according to all the polls from those states) Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, South Carolina (latest poll there has Donald Trump ahead with 34% Jeb Bush 10%) but he can knock out Jeb Bush and win Florida and all those many many delegates. No other candidate can do that.

Hey, dummies, why do we call you dummies, especially you Ted Cruz dummies? We call you dummies because you think that once Trump goes away your candidate will rise and maybe have a chance to win. That’s so stupid. Your candidates don’t have a chance. The fix is in. We think Ted Cruz supporters are especially stupid because they think that the establishment figure most hated by the establishment due to his personality and obnoxiousness (which we do think should be admired by the way) won’t be swept away with ease by the very forces that have tried with all their raw power and vitriol to destroy Donald Trump.

We have to mock any and all supporters of candidates who say “oh, I like so-and-so,” “oh, so-and-so is so inspirational,” “so-and-so candidate is really blah-blah-blah and I really think that he/she has a strong chance to win this thing,” or the dumbest of all “I just want a candidate that can win and so-and-so is it!” Hardy-hardy-har-har – LOL – ROTFL – Ha!

The fix is in dummies. Only one candidate can win now other than Jeb Bush. Like it or not it is Trump or Bush.

We waited until after the first debate to make this assessment. But it is clear now that Trump is the sole alternative. If Trump is knocked out one by one the others – Cruz, Paul, Walker, Kasich, Rubio, will be dismantled and sent to oblivion. The fix is in. The establishment gets what it wants. Except of course that Donald Trump remains standing.

There are a few other things we want to make everyone aware of. Did you know that Fox News had a plan to evict Trump from the debates physically? It’s likely that Fox News wanted to provoke Trump into an explosion so that they could have armed guards come in and remove him:

They reviewed not just the questions they would ask, but the structure of every query, keeping in mind the constraints of time and the need to avoid repeating topics. As they sorted and re-sorted questions, the unpredictability of real estate tycoon and reality TV star Donald Trump was never far from their minds.

Baier even had a “nuclear option” at the ready for Trump if he ignored all protocol.

The script — which he didn’t have to use — took a page from Trump’s “Celebrity Apprentice” TV show. It went like this: “Mr. Trump in your business you have rules. You follow rules. We have rules on this stage. We don’t want to have to escort you to the elevator outside this boardroom.”

“We’re hoping we don’t have to use it,” Baier said later. “We’re locked and loaded.”

Republican Assault on Trump May Only Make Him Stronger
Party insiders ganged up on Trump in the first GOP debate, but the tactic may backfire [snip]

In thinking about what actually happened last night, i.e. what was meaningful as opposed to merely lurid and entertaining, you have to start with the performance of Trump, who might just have lured the Republican Party into a trap from which it will not escape.

There was clearly an effort last night by Republican party interests to knock Trump off his frontrunner pedestal. We saw ambush tactics from the start.

Bret Baier started the whole thing off by asking the candidates to promise they wouldn’t run on a third-party ticket. Trump declined, highlighting his non-Republican-ness. Megyn Kelly followed up by asking Trump to defend his record of calling women “fat pigs” and “disgusting animals” and then made his probable inability to score female votes in a race against Hillary part of her question.

Later questions targeted Trump’s heretical views on abortion and health care, and his history of donating money to the likes of Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi.

No other candidate got anything near this kind of treatment in the debate. A more typical question was Baier softballing Mike Huckabee, asking: “Is the government simply too big for any one person, even a Republican, to shrink?”

Then there was the postgame show. Fox had pollster Frank Luntz come on and speak with a “focus group” that expressed concern about the damage Trump will do to the party. [snip]

That Fox and the other “contestants” onstage were ganging up on Trump was clear enough, but it hasn’t stopped there. Trump is now also seeing a wave of punditry pieces flowing in from traditional conservative outlets slamming his campaign. The National Review’s Jonah Goldberg wrote a long piece this month, “Trump fans, it’s time for an intervention.” [snip]

Meanwhile, Rich Lowry at the Review called the debate a “fabulously awful” night for Trump. He slobbered over the rest of the field. He said Bush “made no mistakes, ” Christie was “forceful,” Carson was “winsome,” Kasich “more of a presence than I would have thought,” and Huckabee was “incapable of having a bad debate.”

Meanwhile, Fox contributor Charles Krauthammer gleefully declared the debate to be the “end of Trump,” saying that he looked “lost.” [snip]

What the Goldbergs and the Wills and Krauthammers of the world probably don’t get is that by singling Trump out for abuse, they’re almost certainly boosting his campaign. First of all, while it might have looked like a damning image to see Trump alone onstage with his hand up and refusing to pledge not to run as an Independent, on another level it was a great Trump moment. As it has been all season, there was Trump, and everyone else. That scene just made the other nine guys onstage look like what they are, stooges beholden to their party and their donors, unable to think for themselves.[snip]

Assuming this doesn’t all end in Trump becoming president and the world shortly thereafter ending in nuclear apocalypse, this twist might end up being the funniest thing to come out of the debate and the campaign in general.[snip]

We may not be laughing two years from now, but for the time being, man, what a show.

There is a lot of leftist claptrap and whistling past the graveyard from Taibbi but even he understands that there was and is a concerted effort to destroy Trump by the GOP establishment and that the effort might make Trump stronger.

After the first GOP debate it is clear that if Trump is destroyed Jeb Bush is the Republican nominee for president. We have very little doubt that in a Clinton versus Bush race there is only one possible outcome: President Hillary Clinton.

We don’t know what happens if Donald Trump becomes the Republican nominee for president. But we have written before that Hillary2016 should learn from Trump about how to handle Big Media and that Hillary Clinton should be very afraid of a Donald Trump nomination. Donald Trump has many admirers that Hillary2016 might not expect.

We do think Donald Trump has some chance to win the nomination mostly because of this:

Donald J. Trump is running a real HOPE AND CHANGE campaign with unceasing attacks on the political establishment of the country which includes both parties, Big Media, lobbyists, special interests, unions, the Chamber of Commerce, the regulatory bureaucratic state, and all those who encourage or feed upon this gargantuan power structure – which is what makes Trump so difficult to destroy.

The Republican/Big Media/Hollywood/political class establishment will try to stop Donald Trump. But Donald Trump, aside from his message and his “crusade” against the establishment campaign holds a Trump card that no other candidate in this political casino can bet on which is why Trump won the GOP debate.

The establishment will consider and threaten to use the rules and all the soft and hard power of the party bosses against Trump. The GOP establishment might try to do to Trump what the DNC did to Hillary such as give delegates she won at the ballot box to a candidate that was not even on the ballot. The GOP might try to steal the election from Trump.

The Trump card, which drives the GOP establishment wild because they see that with that one card Trump holds them, like wolves, at bay. Trump can run as an independent and has nicely said so.

The fear for the GOP is that Trump can run as an independent and lay waste to all the plots and schemes to gift the nomination to Jeb Bush. No other candidate has that Trump card. No other candidate was smart enough to strategize as to how to fight the GOP establishment. All the other candidates were dummies. You do see that, don’t you, Cruz dummies?

If the GOP establishment spent half the energy and time to attack Barack Obama as expended this past month to take down Donald Trump…

It was the Trump Show last night. Trump was why Americans watched. But the Fox News “personalities” thought they were the stars – going so far as to hog the largest chunk of the time at the debate. The candidates? They got less speaking time than the Big Media corruptors of the political process.

Last night Fox News did everything it could to take down Donald Trump (if you doubt us, ask Lindsey Graham who agrees with us). The first question was phrased to isolate Donald Trump. It wasn’t “raise your hands if you promise to support the nominee of the party.” The first question instead was premised in the negative to force Trump to be the outsider raising his arm. It was a direct attack on Trump meant to isolate him from the rest of the field and the Republican audience watching the debate.

That first question could have waited for later in the show. Ask a bunch of policy questions and then ask Trump if he would support the party nominee. But the goal was to take down Trump and that is why the question was first and foremost.

Then the first question addressed specifically to Trump was the “War On Women” question savagely posed by Fox News star Megyn Kelly. Right at the beginning. When the biggest audience in an already huge audience was tuned in is when the sharpest attacks on Trump took place.

After the incessant attacks on Trump during the Trump Show debate, the Fox News assault continued. Megyn Kelly used her hour following the Trump Show to attack Trump. Charles Krauthammer declared Trump destroyed. Witness via video: Not very classy focus group dumps on Trump after debate. Yeah, it was a “kill Donald” operation. Other than Brit Hume stinking up Megyn Kelly’s show when he said Trump had not hurt himself at all that reality was kept at bay.

Once Brit Hume introduced the Fox News audience to the reality that Trump had not been hurt the possibility loomed that Trump might have been helped by the Fox News/GOP establishment attack. Enter DrudgeReport.

The first signs of trouble for the political class came from the results in a DrudgeReport poll. Trump won the poll massively.

After Drudge, the stars of the night came out: the comments section. Our comments section did the superb job our readers have come to expect. Our comments section was not alone however. Whether it was the Megyn Kelly Facebook page or the Deadline Hollywood site (which appeared to be Trump central as both the writers and the comments sections united in support of Trump) reality blazed forth like a hot sun.

Then this morning, Big Media anti-Trump outlets weighed in. It was not what Fox News and the GOP establishment expected. Trump trumped:

Fox News Couldn’t Kill Trump’s Momentum and May Have Only Made It Stronger

Judging by Thursday’s electric debate, he may have sensed his true opponent before anyone else had a clue: the network.

A few hours before Thursday’s Fox News debate, a friend of Donald Trump’s confided to me that Trump was nervous. Not about the competition—he could handle them. No, Trump worried about Fox News, and in particular, debate moderator Megyn Kelly. She’d been hammering him all week on her show, and he was certain she was out to get him. He’d canceled a Fox News appearance on Monday night, the friend said, in order to avoid her. (Trump’s spokeswoman wouldn’t confirm or deny this.)

It turns out Trump was right. His toughest opponents Thursday night weren’t the candidates up on stage, but the Fox News moderators, who went right after him—none with more gusto than Kelly. [snip]

But Trump saw her coming a mile away and cut her off. “Only Rosie O’Donnell,” he barked, drawing cheers from the crowd. When Kelly tried to point out that he had insulted more women than O’Donnell, Trump, as he would all night, steamrolled right past her. “The big problem this country has is being politically correct,” Trump practically shouted, invoking conservatives’ favorite term of disdain. “I’ve been challenged by so many people and I don’t frankly have time for total political correctness and to be honest with you this country doesn’t have time either.” The crowd went wild.

Maybe they were cheering because the question was apropos of something Rachel Maddow would ask, and they were, after all, Republicans. But I think they were cheering because it was clear, at that moment, that Trump was going to be Trump, and wasn’t going to heed the pundits and phonies to tone down his act. [snip]

But judging by Thursday’s raucous, electric debate, Trump may have sensed his true opponent before anyone else had a clue: It’s Fox News. Throughout the evening, Trump and his inquisitors battled back and forth like gladiators. Both parties emerged as huge winners. Though nearly devoid of substance, it was the most entertaining debate I’ve ever seen. [snip]

Hurling insults, Trump went after O’Donnell, political reporters, Bowe Bergdahl, China, Mexico, Japan, money lenders, and practically everyone in Washington. “Our leaders are stupid,” he said, “Our politicians are stupid.” He did stop short of calling Mexicans “rapists,” but not by much. “We need to build a wall, and it has to be built quickly,” he said. “We need to keep illegals out.”

While the moderators went after Trump, the candidates mostly shied away from him. In fact, consciously or otherwise, several echoed his points and nearly everyone tried to match his energy. Some even seemed to genuflect. “Donald Trump is hitting a nerve in this country,” Ohio Governor John Kasich said at one point. “Mr. Trump is touching a nerve because people want to see a wall being built.”

Only Paul mustered the nerve to launch a pair of (pretty weak) direct attacks. He might have regretted it. Trump dispatched him with a single, withering aside (“You’re having a hard time tonight”) that was all the more effective because it was true. [snip]

What’s more interesting than any Trump question or answer, though, was the larger dynamic at play. If Fox News has really turned on Trump, it will add a fascinating new twist to the race. Right now, Trump is the dominant candidate in the field because he has exerted a broad appeal to every part of the Republican Party. How might those Republicans react to Fox News—their own network!—aggressively trying to take down their favorite candidate?

To find out, I called Janet Roberts, 69, a nurse in Bellville, Ohio, who participated in last week’s Bloomberg Politics poll and supported Trump (“He has the balls to stand up to the career politicians”). She had agreed to give me her reaction immediately after the debate. When I called, Roberts was furious. “I had more emotion about Fox News tonight than I did about Donald Trump,” she told me. “Those questions were not professional questions. They were bullying. They were set up to purposely make them all look bad. Our country is a mess and I feel like the debate was an example of that. I’m still with Trump.”

In fact, Roberts said, after watching the debate, she felt even more strongly than before. [snip]

We won’t know for a few more days if other Republicans reacted to the debate as Roberts did. But my guess is that Trump didn’t hurt himself and might even emerge stronger than before.

For those who back faltering candidate and think Trump as the #1 in the field deserved heightened scrutiny the Fox News assault was music. But there was no “heightened scrutiny” of Trump. It reminded us of 2008 as Barack Obama proved himself a boob every time he debated Hillary Clinton and finally Big Media in the form of the fat drunken slob Tim Russert had to intervene to rescue Obama. Think these memories of Hillary2008 bias us in favor of Trump and against the unfair and unbalanced assault by Fox News last night? Here’s Trump hater Lindsey Graham:

“This was more of an inquisition than it was a debate,” Graham said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Friday morning. “It was a missed opportunity to talk about things that really mattered.”

Graham charged that the debate moderators, Bret Baier, Chris Wallace and Megyn Kelly, were particularly unfair in their questioning of Trump, the outspoken billionaire who is leading many GOP polls.

“At the end of the day, ask the man a question that explains his position and his solutions rather than a ten-minute question that describes him as the biggest bastard on the planet,” Graham quipped.

The South Carolina lawmaker said that Thursday night’s contest resulted in a lost chance at addressing crucial issues like immigration reform.

“Did you really understand our position on immigration after this debate?” Graham asked.

Graham is right. It wasn’t that the Fox moderators–mostly Megyn Kelly and Chris Wallace, and to a lesser extent, Brett Baier–asked “tough” questions. I’m all for tough questions. But there’s a difference between “tough” and “snarky,” and I felt there was far more of the latter than the former.

Kelly and Wallace in particular spent precious air time framing their questions as ad hominem attacks rather than a quest to probe serious issues.

“One of the things people love about you is you speak your mind and you don’t use a politician’s filter,” Kelly said to Trump in the opening minutes. “However, that is not without its downsides, in particular, when it comes to women. You’ve called women you don’t like fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals.”

“Only Rosie O’Donnell,” Trump interjected to laughter.

“For the record, it was well beyond Rosie,” Kelly shot back, noting that Trump had told one contestant on “Celebrity Apprentice” that it would be a pretty picture to “see her on her knees.” “Does that sound to you like the temperament of a man we should elect as president?” Kelly asked.

Was anyone really clamoring for clarification about Trump’s disparaging remarks about women he has opposed through the years, including his remarks on a reality TV show? I, for one, had many more important issues that I wanted to hear about, and Kelly’s decision to highlight this “women’s” issue seemed more designed to feed Democrats’ “war on women” impression of the GOP than anything else. [snip]

This wasn’t an opportunity for Fox moderators to play favorites, attack the GOP field, regurgitate Democrats’ talking points, reiterate Democrats’ stereotypes about the GOP, and try to pit one candidate specifically against another. It wasn’t an opportunity for Fox moderators to “shine,” to show how smart they are, or to one-up specific candidates. I don’t care one whit which GOP candidates the moderators preferred personally. All I wanted was tough questions, sticking to the big issues of the day, and a “fair and balanced” opportunity to hear from each candidate. What I got instead was snarky, unprofessional, unnecessarily ad hominem questions that seemed more designed to embarrass than inform. I could have gotten that from CNN.

Et tu, Fox News?

Big Media is the enemy. The initials of the name don’t matter. The self aggrandizing “personalities” of Big Media are the problem. In 2008 the evil emanated from the reptilian Tim Russert. In 2015 it’s a viper with pronounced fake eyelashes. It’s nothing personal. It’s Big Media that every voter should despise. Republican, conservative, liberal, Democrats, Obama Dimocrats, Greens, moderates, all should be united in opposition to Big Media.

The Big Media personalities last night tried to slime Trump as well as the other candidates. The questions against Dr. Ben Carson were ugly and did not really illuminate what Carson thinks in any deep way. But the Carson personality came through, his intelligence came through, so he turned out OK.

Jeb Bush was a bit less fluffed than Obama was in 2008, but still fluffed with pillow soft questions. The softball questions only helped to disappear Bush into the background curtains. Kasich of Ohio had a favorable audience before him in Cleveland and that sorta helped him if Jeb Bush continues his slow fade of mumbles, stumbles and mush. Kasich helped himself only because his Florida ex-governor competition was such a failure. Walker disappeared too.

Ted Cruz came off very well. His answers were well crafted as we expected. His personality was not as insufferable as it usually is. Cruz did well but it was the Trump Show. Along with Huckabee, Cruz answered well, came off well, explained himself well. But both only survived. Well, maybe a bit helped because they survive.

Rubio? Rubio came off as slick and smiley. Next time he should keep away from the sun lamp. Rubio was too well packaged to come off well. Rubio’s well crafted plaster statue imitation suffered next to the mannerist art of Trump.

Loud-mouth Chris Christie? He suffered greatly. His exchange with Rand Paul was the best entertainment of the evening. Christie was great in words and demeanor. His flab was about to fly. But the Rand Paul ripost about the Obama hug seared. The Christie balloon hissed out in hot air from the Rand Paul arrow.

Rand Paul? Rand Paul was a terrorist bomb attack that turned suicide attack. His Obama hug attack on Christie was marvelous to hear. His attacks on Trump however failed spectacularly. Paul attacked Trump in a scene from the Godfather (‘you carry those politicians in your pockets like so much change’). Trump laughed at him.

Then Rand Paul tried to denounce Trump’s explanation of single payer health care (Trump thinks the Canadian model and the Scotland model works but does not think single payer would work in the U.S. – we know this from interviews at Morning Joe with Donald Trump not from the debate because the moderators were not interested in having issues explained.) Trump finished Paul off with a put down which will go down in the annals of debatedom along with “Senator, you’re no John Kennedy.”

“I don’t think you heard me. You’re having a hard time tonight.” That truth is, that Paul missed what Trump said against single payer in the U.S. and that Rand Paul was indeed having a very difficult time as his attacks mostly failed and his bid for attention ended badly. This Trump triumph has now been turned into Trump insulting the hearing impaired (Rand Paul uses a hearing aid) by Big Media outlets desperate to attack Trump with anything.

Trump trumped at the first debate for the very reasons the GOP establishment believes he was destroyed. Trump’s greatest moment?

The third best Trump moment was when Trump schooled the sneering Chris Wallace on business.

The runner up Trump moment of Triumph when Trump lectured Megyn Kelly on the degrading effects of political correctness:

The best, #1 moment for Trump:

The best moment for Trump is when he stood alone, in an arena filled with Republicans/conservatives, next to the major Republican candidates for president, in front of the stars of Fox News, before the biggest Fox News audience ever, and said, ‘I’ll stand with America… P.U.M.A.!